Taken, with editing, from The Christian’s Daily Companion. Wood (1800-1877) was at this time minister of New Greyfriars’ church in Edinburgh.
J Julius Wood
John 5:39. Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me.
Suppose the last will and testament of some individual disposing of a large property were put into your hands, your conduct would be regulated by the interest which you supposed you had in such a deed. If you were a public officer to whose keeping it was entrusted for preservation, you would proceed without opening it and lay it aside in the usual depository. If you were a lawyer appointed to defend or impugn its validity, you would read it carefully, with reference to its legal construction and the signatures attached to it. If it was a very ancient deed and you had a taste for antiquarian researches, you would examine the forms of expression used and note the information regarding old places and customs which it contained. But if it was a last will and testament in your own favour, you would read it carefully with much interest, to ascertain the amount of property bequeathed to you.
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments have been put into your hands. These two Testaments relate to the same things. They record a free gift by God, to sinners, of Jesus Christ and all His unsearchable riches. They reveal things which you could never have discovered, things which are essential to your salvation – the offer of blessings surpassing in value all else besides. They are put into your hands invested with all the interest of a testament bequeathing to you a rich and desirable inheritance. They testify of Jesus Christ, God’s great gift to sinners, and of eternal life by Him. Therefore search the Scriptures.
And to read the Scriptures seldom or carelessly is not what is meant by searching them. They must be perused frequently and diligently. On the very face of it, it is absurd to say that a man searches the Scriptures who, in a whole week, only spends an hour or half an hour, or perhaps less, on the Sabbath Day, reading the Bible. You need your daily bread to nourish your body, but you also need daily nourishment for your soul. Perhaps you have no relish for the daily reading of the Scriptures, no appetite for the spiritual food which they afford. But be persuaded to take a little of that food daily; its tendency is to produce an appetite for more; it will make you hunger and thirst after righteousness. The Word of God is both medicine and food to the sin-diseased soul. It purges away corruption; it heals the disease of sin and it nourishes and strengthens the renewed nature of the spiritual man.
I believe that there are professing Christians who make conscience of reading a portion of the Scriptures daily, but do so merely to fulfill what they consider to be a duty, and not with any earnest desire to obtain a saving knowledge of divine truth. Conscience would reprove them if they neglected their morning or evening chapter, but they feel no uneasiness at learning little or nothing from that chapter. They read for the purpose of reading, not to be instructed by reading. Now though they read daily, they cannot be said to search the Scriptures. They do not seek for anything in the Scriptures; yet this must surely be implied in searching.
And most necessary of all, whenever you read or meditate on the Word of God, breathe the devout earnest prayer that the Holy Spirit may give you an understanding heart and an obedient will, for this essentially pertains to a right searching of the Scriptures.
Do I thus read my Bible? Do I read it very seldom, or read it without searching it? If I do, may the Lord pardon my sin, and cause me to cease from it. Whenever I open my Bible, let me have in my mind a desire to be made wiser and better by it. Let me remember that what I am going to read has divine authority – it is the Word of God, and not the word of man’s wisdom – and that it testifies of Jesus Christ, in whom alone we have everlasting life. Taking up the Bible with these solemn, reverential feelings and thoughts occupying my mind, let me search it for the purpose of becoming wise in the things of Christ, of obtaining more knowledge of His person, His works, His doctrine, His precepts.
Let no one begin to make excuses. Some allege that they have no time to read the Bible every day, to search into its meaning, to ponder what it says. But you regularly provide nourishment for your body; is it absolutely impossible for you to provide for your soul? No, the busier you are with worldly matters, so much the more frequently do you need to go to the Word of God. For the more you have to do, the more need you have of guidance and direction; the more you are occupied with the things of this life, the more you need to come in contact with the Scriptures to prevent you from becoming altogether worldly-minded and from utterly forgetting your immortal interests. But the time! Where is the time to be found by someone who is very busy? Find the will, my friend, and I shall have little difficulty in finding you the time. If you are to have time for anything, you should have time for taking counsel from God in His Word.
Do not say that the Scriptures are full of mysteries and that you cannot understand them. To almost all those who allege this as an excuse for neglecting it, the Bible is a mystery just because they do not search it. There are indeed mysteries in it which none of the people of God have ever fathomed, and their opening up is perhaps intended to minister to their enjoyment during the ages of eternity. But much that you deem mysterious would become clear as noonday, and beautiful as the truth of God if you were daily and diligently and humbly to search the Scriptures