8 Profitable Ways to Read the Bible

Take this counsel to heart...it is profitable, indeed. I'm grateful to one of our church members for passing it along for me to post here.

8 PROFITABLE WAYS TO READ THE BIBLE, by J.C. Ryle

1. Begin reading your Bible this very day. The way to do a thing is to do it; and the way to read the Bible is actually to read it! It is not merely meaning, or wishing, or resolving, or intending, or thinking about it , which will advance you one step. You must positively read. There is no royal road in this matter, any more than in the matter of prayer. If you cannot read yourself, you must persuade somebody else to read it to you. But one way or another, through eyes or ears, the words of Scripture must actually pass before your mind.

2. Read the Bible with an earnest desire to understand it. Do not think for a moment, that the great object is to turn over a certain quantity of printed paper, and that it matters nothing whether you understand it or not. Some ignorant people seem to imagine, that all is done if they advance so many chapters every day, though they may not have a notion what they are all about, and only know that they have pushed on their bookmark ahead so many pages. This is turning Bible reading into a mere ritual form. Settle it down in your mind as a general principle, that a Bible not understood is a Bible that does no good! Say to yourself often as you read, “What is this all about?” Dig for the meaning like a man digging for gold.

3. Read the Bible with child-like faith and humility. Open your heart as you open God’s book, and say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening!” Resolve to believe implicitly whatever you find there, however much it may run counter to your own desires and prejudices. Resolve to receive heartily every statement of truth, whether you like it or not. Beware of that miserable habit into which some readers of the Bible fall, they receive some doctrines because they like them; and they reject others because they are condemning to themselves, or to some relation, or friend. At this rate, the Bible is useless! Are we to be judges of what ought to be in God’s Word? Do we know better than God? Settle it down in your mind that you will receive all and believe all, and that what you cannot understand, you will take on trust. Remember, when you pray that you are speaking to God, and God hears you. But, remember, when you read Scripture that God is speaking to you, and you are not to “dictate,” but to listen!

4. Read the Bible in a spirit of obedience and self-application. Sit down to the study of it with a daily determination that you will live by its rules, rest on its statements, and act on its commands. Consider, as you travel through every chapter, “How does this affect my thinking and daily conduct? What does this teach me?” It is poor work to read the Bible from mere curiosity, and for speculative purposes in order to fill your head and store your mind with mere opinions; while you do not allow the book to influence your heart and life. That Bible is read best which is practiced most!

5. Read the Bible daily. Make it a part of every day’s business to read and meditate on some portion of God’s Word. Private means of grace are just as needful every day for our souls as food and clothing are for our bodies. Yesterday’s food will not feed the laborer today; and today’s food will not feed the laborer tomorrow. Do as the Israelites did in the wilderness. Gather your manna fresh every morning. Choose your own seasons and hours. Do not scramble over and hurry your reading. Give your Bible the best, and not the worst part of your time! But whatever plan you pursue, let it be a rule of your life to visit the throne of grace and God’s Word every day.

6. Read all of the Bible and read it in an orderly way. I fear there are many parts of the Word which some people never read at all. This is to say at the least, a very presumptuous habit. “All Scripture is profitable.” [2 Timothy 3:16]. To this habit may be traced that lack of well-proportioned views of truth, which is so common in this day. Some people’s Bible-reading is a system of perpetual ‘dipping and picking’. They do not seem to have an idea of regularly going through the whole book.

7. Read the Bible fairly and honestly. Determine to take everything in its plain, obvious meaning and regard all forced interpretations with great suspicion. As a general rule, whatever a verse of the Bible seems to mean it does mean! Cecil’s rule is a very valuable one, “The right way of interpreting Scripture is to take it as we find it, without any attempt to force it into any particular theological system.”

8. Read the Bible with Christ continually in view. The grand primary object of all Scripture, is to testify of Jesus! Old Testament ceremonies are shadows of Christ. Old Testament judges are types of Christ. Old Testament prophecies are full of Christ’s sufferings, and of Christ’s glory yet to come. The first coming and the second; the Lord’s humiliation and His glorious kingdom; His cross and the crown shine forth everywhere in the Bible. Keep fast hold on this clue, if you would read the Bible aright!

I might easily add to these hints, if space permitted. Few and short as they are you will find them most profitable when implemented.

Study Your Blessed Savior More and More

"Would you have more faith? Then seek to become more acquainted with Jesus Christ. Study your blessed Savior more and more, and strive to know more of the length and breadth and height of His love. Study Him in all His offices, as the Priest, the Physician, the Redeemer, the Advocate, the Friend, the Teacher, the Shepherd of His believing people.

Study Him as one who not only died for you—but is also living for you at the right hand of God; as one who not only shed His blood for you—but daily intercedes for you at the right hand of God; as one who is soon coming again for you, and will stand once more on this earth.

The miner who is fully persuaded that the rope which draws him up from the pit will not break, is drawn up without anxiety and alarm. The believer who is thoroughly acquainted with the fullness of Jesus Christ, is the believer who travels from grace to glory with the greatest comfort and peace."

--J.C. Ryle, Faith in Christ

HT: Of First Importance 

The Sanctifying and Comforting Effect of the Cross

"Let the cross of Christ be often before our minds. Rightly understood, no object in all Christianity is so likely to have a sanctifying as well as a comforting effect on our souls."

--J.C. Ryle

The Root of All Error

"Ignorance of the Scriptures is the root of all error."

--J.C. Ryle

A Warning about Departing from the Truth

"The beginning of departure from the pure truth is like the letting out of waters - first a drop, and at last a torrent."

--J.C. Ryle

Glorying in the Gospel, Knowing the Plague Within

"The man that does not glory in the gospel can surely know little of the plague that is within him."

--J.C. Ryle

A Path Worn by the Feet of Many Pilgrims

"Thousands and tens of thousands have sought for pardon at the mercy-seat of Christ, and not one has ever returned to say that he sought in vain. Sinners of every name and nation—sinners of every sort and description—have knocked at the door of the fold, and none have ever been refused admission.

If the way which the Gospel sets before us were a new and untraveled way—we might well feel faint-hearted. But it is not so. It is an old path. It is a path worn by the feet of many pilgrims, and a path in which the footsteps are all one way. The treasury of Christ’s mercies has never been found empty. The well of living waters has never proved dry."

--J.C. Ryle

HT: Of First Importance

The Stain of Guilt, the Weight of Sin

"Terribly black must that guilt be for which nothing but the blood of the Son of God could make satisfaction. Heavy must that weight of human sin be which made Jesus groan and sweat drops of blood in agony at Gethsemane and cry at Golgotha, 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?'"

--J.C. Ryle

The Beginning of Real Christianity

"To feel our sins, and know our sickness is the beginning of real Christianity. To be sensible of our corruption and abhor our own transgressions, is the first symptom of spiritual health. Happy indeed are they who have found out their soul's disease! Let them know that Christ is the very Physician they require, and let them apply to Him without delay."

--J.C. Ryle

To Be Prayerless Is to Be Christless

"A praying Master, like Jesus, can have no prayerless servants. The Spirit of adoption will always make a man call upon God. To be prayerless is to be Christless, Godless, and on the high road to destruction."

--J.C. Ryle

Tasting Grace, Hating Sin

A sobering quote by J.C. Ryle:

The man who professes to know Christ and trust Him, while he cleaves to sin and the world, is going down to hell with a lie in his right hand. The heart that has really tasted the grace of Christ, will instinctively hate sin.

HT: J.C. Ryle Quotes

Christ Was More Than a Martyr

The quote below from J.C. Ryle reminds us why Christ's sacrificial death is different than any other sacrificial death.

Our Lord Jesus Christ did not die merely as a martyr, or as a splendid example of self-sacrifice and self-denial. Those who can see no more than that in His death, fall infinitely short of the truth. They lose sight of the very foundation-stone of Christianity, and miss the whole comfort of the Gospel. Christ died as a sacrifice for man’s sin. He died to make reconciliation for man’s iniquity. He died to purge our sins by the offering of Himself. He died to redeem us from the curse which we all deserved, and to make satisfaction to the justice of God, which must otherwise have condemned us. Never let us forget this!

-- J.C. Ryle

HT: Erik Kowalker

The Fruits of Public Worship

Does our corporate worship make us holy at home? According to Ryle, that is the test for whether or not our public worship is doing us good.

The best public worship is that which produces the best private Christianity. The best church services for the congregation are those which make its individual members most holy at home and alone. If we want to know whether our own public worship is doing us good, let us try it by these tests. Does it stimulate our conscience? Does it send us to Christ? Does it add to our knowledge? Does it sanctify our life? If it does, we may depend on it; it is worship of which we have no cause to be ashamed.

-- J.C. Ryle

HT: Erik Kowalker

Simplicity in Preaching

The Banner of Truth has recently published in booklet form J.C. Ryle's address on Simplicity in Preaching. I highly recommend this little treatise - for preachers young and old alike. You will find an abundance of wisdom and common sense in these 22 pages. Here is a summary of the five points he discusses in the booklet:

1. If you want to attain simplicity in preaching, you must have a clear knowledge of what you are going to preach.
2. If you would attain simplicity in preaching, you must use simple words.
3. If you would attain simplicity in preaching, you must seek to acquire a simple style of composition, with short sentences and as few colons and semicolons as possible.
4. If you would attain simplicity in preaching, aim at directness.
5. If you would attain simplicity in preaching, make abundant use of illustration and anecdote.

Thank God for Feeling Your Sinfulness

Ponder the glorious truth of this quote from J.C. Ryle:

He that has any feeling of his own sinfulness, ought to thank God for it. That very sense of weakness, wickedness, and corruption, which perhaps makes you uncomfortable, is in reality a token for good, and a cause for praise. The first step towards being really good is to feel bad. The preparation for heaven is to know that we deserve hell. Before we can be counted righteous we must know ourselves to be miserable sinners. Before we can have inward happiness and peace with God, we must learn to be ashamed and confounded because of our manifold transgressions. Before we can rejoice in a well-grounded hope, we must be taught to say, “Unclean, unclean! God, be merciful to me a sinner!”

HT: Eric Kowalker

Four Costs of Becoming a Christian

Erik Kowalker's great site, J.C. Ryle Quotes (which I have mentioned on this blog before), has a series of posts this week regarding the four things Ryle said a person must be ready to give up if he/she wishes to become a Christian (all of them from Ryle's classic work, Holiness). They are well worth pondering.

1. Your Self-Righteousness
2. Your Sins
3. Your Love of Ease
4. The Favor of the World

And check the Ryle site tomorrow for a summary post, "Contemplating the Four Costs."

Ryle's Exhortation to Bible Reading

With the beginning of a new year often comes the beginning of daily Bible reading plans. Unfortunately, many people start with the best of intentions and then get bogged down in the instructions for the tabernacle in Exodus or the holiness codes in Leviticus (though some make it to Kings or Chronicles before they give up!).

As you start your new daily Bible reading plan, be encouraged and challenged by this exhortation from J.C. Ryle.

J.C. Ryle on the Need for Knowing Christ as Redeemer

I have already mentioned on this blog the site devoted to J.C. Ryles Quotes. All the quotes are excellent, but there was one last week that has really stuck with me.

“The story of Christ’s moral teaching, self-sacrifice, example, and the need of being earnest and sincere like Him, will never smooth down a dying pillow. Christ the Teacher, Christ the great Pattern, Christ the Prophet, will not suffice.”

“We want something more than this! We want the old, old story of Christ dying for our sins and rising again for our justification. We want Christ the Mediator, Christ the Substitute, Christ the Intercessor, Christ the Redeemer, in order to meet with confidence the King of Terrors and say, ‘Oh death, where is your sting? Oh grave, where is your victory?’”

Christ Crucified

Both of the following quotes remind us of the supreme importance of proclaiming Christ crucified (whether in preaching publicly to fellow sinners or in preaching privately to our own souls):

Let us look upon a crucified Christ, the remedy of all our miseries. His cross hath procured a crown, his passion hath expiated our transgression. His death hath disarmed the law, his blood hath washed a believer's soul. This death is the destruction of our enemies, the spring of our happiness, and the eternal testimony of divine love. --Stephen Charnock

All the simplicity in the world can do no good, unless you preach the simple gospel of Jesus Christ so fully and clearly that everybody can understand it. If "Christ crucified" has not His rightful place in your sermons, and sin is not exposed as it should be, and your people are not plainly told what they ought to believe, and be, and do — your preaching is of no use! --J.C. Ryle

J.C. Ryle Quotes

You may remember Eric Kowalker from his old site, "Gospel Reminders." Well, now he has started a new blog that aims to "expose Christians to the writings of J.C. Ryle by providing Christ-centered quotes Monday-Friday to stir your mind to the glory of God." Make sure you either bookmark this site or sign up to receive the daily quote via email. Check it out here.