But as
for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from
whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings
that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All
scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to
God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17)
The
discipline of regularly reading scripture is as important as prayer and the
practice of Sabbath keeping. For the Christian attempting to follow The Way
these three faith disciplines (scripture, prayer, and sabbath) teaches us, grounds us, and prepares us to be in the world.
The
Formula of Concord begins with these words: We believe, teach, and confess that
the only rule and guiding principle according to which all teachings and
teachers are to be evaluated and judged are the prophetic and apostolic
writings of the Old and New Testaments alone ...
It is in the scriptures that we encounter the story
of God and God’s people. It is a story of high drama, everyday life, good
people and bad people. It teaches about good hygiene and gives advice about
dating. There is poetry and songs. More importantly it is an inspired word of
God challenging us to learn how to live lives of reconciliation.
There are many resources out there to help you in your
disciple of reading scripture. There are “read through the bible” programs such
as found in the Evangelical Lutheran Worship book on page 1121. You can use this
along with the Daily Prayer resources found on page 298. There are several reading
plans out there, check out Bible Gateway
for a few.
My encouragement to you, if you do not already have
a discipline of daily scripture reading, is to sign up for a resource that
sends you daily readings, such as the one offered by the American Bible Society. It
delivers a daily reading to your email inbox every morning.
