In studying for my message this past week, I consulted Gordon Fee’s commentary on the letter to the Philippians.  Fee always has a way of achieving a great blend of academic discovery and practical application.  One comment I read stuck in my mind.  Essentially, he said it would be a great tragedy to lose the heart and meaning of a text by over-analyzing it.  His advice was to go back to the scripture and read it again.  And again.  And again.

I confess that as a preacher, evangelist, and pastor, one of my greatest struggles is reading the Word of God for spiritual nourishment and personal transformation.  My tendency is to read it for sermon material.  I see passages unfold as if I were preaching them to others.  But the Holy Spirit wants to preach that passage to me first.

I would prefer to read the Bible for what it has to say to my audience.  I forget that when I read it, I am an audience of one and must decided how I will respond to what God tells me to do; repent, rejoice, give a gift, intercede, or re-arrange priorities.  When the message on the page is for everyone else, I escape the personal responsibility of obedience.  When the message is for me, I have to give an account to God.

Leaders, pastors, teachers, and preachers are all susceptible and, I suspect, notorious for seeing how a passage of scripture applies to their parishioners, their staff, or even their spouse.  But the Word of God applies to me first.  It must cut me, wound me, convict me, encourage me, admonish me, and lay my heart bare before God can use me to handle it correctly in it’s work to those I am called to lead or teach.

Quit reading the Bible for what it means for everybody else.  Start reading it, first, for what it says to you in your current position.  Personal application precedes corporate communication.