Psalm 119 Journible

Our new Bible Study books showed up on the porch today.

For our new Tuesday night Bible Study time, I picked a book from the Journible Series (or the 17:18 series). There are several editions of the Journible Series, but I picked a nice short one for the introduction to our Bible Study. The one I chose was Journible Through Psalm 119 because I love Psalm 119 and because Psalm 119 emphasizes the Psalmist's passion and love of God's Word... a passion that is seriously lacking in many, who claim Christianity as their faith.

Pouring over the scriptures, pondering them, and reading them were a natural response to my genuine introduction to Jesus. I wanted to get to know him. And what is important is that I attribute this attachment to the Bible... not to some inherent quality within myself... or as a result of what the Spirit of God does in just a handful of His followers... but to the natural response to anything that we come to value.



I've seen people, who are not natural readers, read every word of the sports headlines when it involves the team they love. I've watched parents, who would never pick up a magazine to read any of its articles, but they scan the words of the article written about one of their children two or three times... then they make copies of it and try to get everyone else to read it. I've watched as men, who would never take the time to read a book, begin to pour over the pages of an instruction manual for their first flat screen TV... even calling on others to help them understand the big difficult words, because they want to get it right.   And I've seen boys, who claim to hate reading, scan through pages upon pages of video game walkthroughs, just so they can get to the next level.

You see, the reason why most people struggle with Bible reading isn't because of a lack of will power or a challenging reading disability, or A.D.D., it is because of a lack of passion for the subject.  Let's be honest, a genuine passion or a deep, heartfelt love can overcome many, many boundaries. And I write this to you all now because I believe that if you lack that passion it is only because you don't know the treasure trove that the Bible is.

I am hoping that the Psalmist passionate proclamations about God's word in Psalm 119, along with the Journible format of Bible study, which enhances meditation and contemplation of scripture through copying by hand the words of scripture, will influence some, including myself, towards a deeper or renewed passion for the Living Word of God.