Of all the things I have ever written, there are three consecutive paragraphs I once wrote that seem to have offended more people than anything else I’ve ever written. Please understand, I really don’t like to offend people. I am committed to — even passionate about — speaking (and writing) truth with grace. My problem in the case of these three paragraphs is that I still believe the words I originally wrote.

Consequently, I will reproduce those (supposedly offensive) paragraphs for you below. But first let me make one comment for the sake of context. My goal in writing these three paragraphs was to challenge people to read the Bible regularly and frequently. I never intended to offend anyone. I wrote these words because I thought (and still think) that many of us are spiritually starving ourselves through disengagement with the Bible. My single motivation was to persuade people to carve out adequate and regular time to read God’s Word.

With that clarification in mind, I offer here the three paragraphs that seem to have offended more people than anything I’ve ever written. These come from pages 23-24 in Bible Revival: Recommitting Ourselves to One Book.[1]

Priorities are not as simple as “God first, family second, and church third.” What does that expression mean anyway? Every time I have to choose between reading my Bible and spending time with my children, should I read my Bible? No. Priorities aren’t based upon a simple hierarchy; they require the proper balance of activities in relationship to one another. But it is a fitting question to ask: for a person who is working full-time, what is the appropriate quantity of time that should be spent (on average) with one’s spouse or children, in house or yard work, exercising and resting? How much time should you devote to building relationships with unbelieving neighbors or serving in your church? It is not as simple as “God first, family second, church third.” Priorities need to be weighted.

Let’s grant for the sake of discussion that the exact balance of priorities will vary somewhat from person to person. Does this mean that we can weight our priorities any way we want? Absolutely not. “Meditating day and night” on God’s Word is something that everyone must do. It is basic to the Christian life. It seems to me, then, that in any weighting of priorities the following scenarios are out of bounds:

  • More time watching television than reading/studying/memorizing God’s Word.

  • More time social networking or texting than reading God’s Word.

  • More time playing video games than reading God’s Word.

Almost everyone I know spends more time on one of these activities than they do reading, studying, and memorizing the Bible. Shall we call this anything other than what it is? We don’t like to talk about sin, but this is sin for sure. James says, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). We need a revival of the Bible. And many of us need to repent of our misplaced priorities.

Notes

[1] Do you feel like you need to do some soul searching related to your engagement with the Bible? Can I recommend that you pick up a copy of Bible Revival: Recommitting Ourselves to One Book and carefully consider your current approach to interacting with God’s Word? Better yet, read it together with a study group. Discussion questions are included.

This post and other resources are available at Kindle Afresh: The Blog and Website of Kenneth Berding.