How to read Scripture

Scripture not only testifies to its own authenticity and reliability, but it also tells us how to read and understand and delight in it.  For example, Proverbs 3 offers four directives for the kinds of attitudes we are to cultivate as we read Scripture:

1. Cultivate a desire to remember and know Scripture  (vv. 1-4). Read Scripture to know Scripture and the God of Scripture.  The goal is not to “complete” the reading, but to have the reading complete us.  It is to make us mature and full in Christ.  That only happens as we meditate on and remember (and apply and appropriate) what we read.
2. Be obedient to Scripture from the heart  (vv. 5-8).  Beware of honoring God with verbal affirmations when your heart is far from Him (Mt. 15:8).  It is no obedience when the heart desires rebellion or when the heart does it with an attitude of duty and obligation and is devoid of love.
3. Invite the discipline and correction of Scripture  (vv. 11-12).  This is hard because correction is antithetical to fleshly pride.  And because of that pride, we have to fight against the temptation to ignore correction.  Instead of ignoring correction, Scripture and its wisdom are to be embraced — as a man embraces a woman and holds her tightly (v. 18).  That means correction must not only be heard, but that it must be heard.
4. Let Scripture’s “Yes” be “Yes” and “No” be “No”  (vv. 27ff).  One of the easiest ways to apply Scripture is to ask, “Is there something here I am commanded to do or avoid?  Then do (or avoid) it today!”  Be quick to respond to Scripture’s admonitions, encouragements, promises, and corrections.