Bible interpreter Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, says: ‘The words printed on the pages of my Bible give witness to the living and active revelation of the God of creation and salvation, the God of love who became the Word made flesh in Jesus, and I had better not forget it. If in my Bible reading I lose touch with this livingness, if I fail to listen to this living Jesus, submit to His sovereignty and respond to His love, I become arrogant in my knowing and impersonal in my behaviour. An enormous amount of damage is done in the name of Christian living by bad Bible reading. Caveat lector, “let the reader beware.”’ It’s not enough to read God’s Word daily, we must practise its principles consistently. The psalmist wrote: ‘Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies…I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word. I have not departed from Your judgments, for You Yourself have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path’ (Psalm 119:97-105 NKJV). The Bible becomes a living word when we decide to live according to its principles and guidance each day.
