A preacher in Norway once said something like this, “We preachers are very tempted to read the Bible as a text book for sermons in stead of feeding on the word for our own spiritual need.”  He had a point.  Do eloquent pastors, teaching and expounding the word, “covering” this and that doctrine, have a personal, intimate relationship to the Bible themselves?  I sometimes wonder.

I once enjoyed an excellent message in San Diego.  It was well presented, and after the service I overheard one of the members saying to the good pastor, “If you keep on  like this, we  don´t have to worry about the budget!”  In other words, the preacher would probably have success.

Some days later I was in a dinner party, and I happened to sit next to that pastor at the table. (I personally knew him from a visit to France once).  What a privilege, I thought, to be close to such a spiritual brother. I started conversing, but  he had  little to say and was very passive.  Now, he could have his good reasons for feeling empty on that occasion.  Or he could be one of those many pastors who are one person on the platform and a different person outside his professional “home ground”, the church.

A Christian saturated with God´s word and daily sitting at His feet, will invariably be like a living fountain that always has something to refresh others with.  I firmly believe that.

A sick aunt sometimes gave me a ring.  Why did she do that?  Ah, she just wanted to share a word with me.  She would say, “Jørn, I have a word for you!”  And then she read a Bible word which she thought I should have.   The strange thing is that it was often just a word I needed.  She is with the Lord now, but I often think of that sick aunt´s obscure ministry in my life over the phone.  I don´t recall that any other person has ever called me that way.

What am I talking about?  The joy of a personal relationship to your Bible.  Don´t let the pastor chew it up for you.  Don´t accept to have it all  presented on a big screen.  Don´t let the Bible become a text book.  Or a Bible school book. Or just theology.  I once spoke to the young people at a breakfast meeting in a Bible school outside Paris about “The University of Mary” from which you´ll never get a diploma – i.e.  the place at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:39).  The students joyfully accepted that,  I remember.

O, that has been the way the Lord was pleased to bring me up from my early youth. I don´t despise preachers.  Of course not. I love them as long as they faithfully hold forth the truth.  But none of them can “compete” with your own personal relationship with God´s word  experiencing  what it does for you day by day.  Your and my secret should be similar to that of Jeremiah:

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart!”  (Jer. 15:16)

Clovis, CA, April 27, 2012
jn