Rules, rules, but which rules?

Spurgeon wrote this sentence in his autobiography and you may wish to reflect upon it: ‘I have found, in my own spiritual life, that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit.’ What is the danger in making rules, we may ask? Are they not a path for more successful arrangements of the means of grace? Or, are they a way to avoid doing what the Bible tells us to do?

Take the determination to read several chapters of the Bible every day. Nothing wrong with that, we all know, when we have the time. Moreover, it is an essential part of family worship to read a passage from the Bible. But what if my determination to read my five or seven chapters a day prevents me from stopping to reflect on a line in a verse that suddenly jumps out at me? My rule says, read your chapters, whereas God may be saying, ‘Pay attention to this line. There is something in it that applies to you right now.’

What does the Bible say about how to read it? The common way to read it is by meditation. Today, meditation involves letting your mind go blank and thinking of a nice sunset or similar. That is not what the Bible means by meditation. In Psalm 1, the blessed man is described as meditating. He also does it all the time, or at least day and night. Moreover, the word translated as ‘meditation’ means to mutter to yourself. Literally, meditation is speaking to yourself about what the Bible says and speaking to God about it as well. 

This raises the question as to whom the Bible is speaking. After all, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians no longer speaks to its original recipients because they have moved on to another world. Since they have gone to heaven, they do not need to read the instruction to put on spiritual armour. So when we read Ephesians 6, the question is not, ‘What is God saying to the Ephesians?’ Rather, the question is, ‘What is God saying to me in 2020 about how to fight the good fight?’ A good soldier will stop and think about how he is using the pieces of the spiritual armour rather than rushing on to complete his quota for the day. He can move on if he has the time, but he must meditate on what Ephesians 6 is saying to him. 

The man in Psalm 1 became a spiritually strong man, but he did so by meaningful meditation on the Word of God. The way we show it respect is by following its rules about how to read it. It is very sad if our own rules overrule God’s rules.