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How to stop taking the Bible for granted
“Scripture has never been easier to obtain, and Scripture has never been more difficult to absorb.”
Let that sink in for a minute.
I read that quote the other day in The Me I Want to Be by John Ortberg, and was struck by that sad truth. It reminded me of a recent discussion around our dinner table, when Pop told us the story of Mary Jones. She was a poor young Welsh girl who saved and saved for a Bible, and when she finally had the funds she needed, she walked 26 miles to buy one (just a heads up that is 42 kilometers – a literal marathon!). So, after a long arduous trek barefoot through the countryside, Mary arrived at the house of the clergyman Thomas Charles to make her purchase... only to discover there were no Bibles left! She burst into tears. Her heart was broken, because she could not buy her own Bible.
Do not worry though, the story does not end there! There is a happily ever after! Mary ended up with a Bible (one set aside for purchase by someone else, but a Bible nonetheless). And God used this interaction in the push for more Bible translations! What a beautiful chain of events. Now, as we contemplated this story at home, Pop asked a question I would like to pose to you: How many Bibles do you have?
Most of us probably have a few Bibles, either from our school days or due to the changing translations within our churches. And that does not even take into account the access we have through the internet! But with all this access, all these Bibles... do you ever desire to read Scripture like Mary?
Satan knows the Word has power. Saving power (John 5:24; 1 Cor. 1:18; Rom. 1:16). So any time you even think about opening the Bible, you may well find yourself faced with temptations and distractions placed there by the devil, the world, or simply your own sinful flesh. Suddenly there is something else that requires your immediate attention, or there is a notification on your phone, or you just do not feel like it. And once the first battle has been waged and won and your Bible is open... the spiritual war resumes! You are once again distracted, or start skim-reading, or your brain just goes numb.
The sad, unspoken truth is that many people find the Bible boring. The length and strength of our attention span has been weakened by our dependence on external stimuli. The overconsumption of short and shallow content through social media has decreased our capacity to focus. Therefore, in a world with so many easy options to amuse or distract our minds, we all have to learn to be fed by the Bible.
So, how can we do this? How can we make sure we are truly listening when we hear the Bible all the time? How can we make sure we are still looking for God’s Word when it is right in front of us?
John Ortberg had a few suggestions for improving our engagement with the Scriptures, and I would like to share them with you.
1. Read with expectancy
Sometimes people bring energy to a gathering. Sometimes they just show up.
Consider this: when you spend time in the Word of God, you get to spend time with the God of the Word (James 4:8; Jer. 29:13). If I really understand that, then when I open up my Bible, I do not just “show up.” My mind is awake. I am building my relationship with my Father. It is His turn to talk. I am expectantly waiting to hear what He has to say!
2. Read with an active mind
Satan loves to paint a mental glaze over the familiar words of the Bible. So break through it! Use your critical thinking, voice your musings, and ask questions! Read the way you watch a movie. Nobody “tries harder” to watch a movie, but everybody is engaged. Everyone has something to say.
However, when it comes to the Bible, the conversations become stilted. People are so concerned with making sure they get the “right” answer, that everyone backs out. The good-natured revealing of different perspectives creates much more learning than just anxiously filling in the blanks with the right answers.
3. Memorize the Word
I can’t emphasize how much I believe in hiding God’s Word in your heart (Ps. 119:11). I know it can sound hard, or tedious, or time-consuming, but you can start small! Just start! The words we carry in our minds are available to transform any moment. Memorize the encouragements or warnings that you need most. When God’s Word pushes out lies and resides within us, we will reach for truth, and it will be ours to have.
4. Don’t just read. Do something!
It is easier to be smart than to be good. In all our love of debating what we need to do, sometimes we just need to do what we already know (James 1:22)! Practice loving a difficult person (Luke 6:27-29; Col. 3:12-14). Give away some money (Deut. 15:10-11; 2 Cor. 9:7). Be patient with your siblings (1 John 3:16-18; Ps. 133:1; Eph. 4:31-32). Respect your parents (Deut. 5:16; Ex. 20:12). Confess your sins (James 5:16; 1 John 1:9-10; Prov. 28:13). Trust God’s plan (Ps. 37:3-5; Rom. 8:28; Prov. 3:5-6; Matt. 6:25-34).
Now I cannot promise this is the perfect recipe for engaging with the Scriptures. Reading God’s Word is part of a relationship we cannot build on our own. Pray for the Holy Spirit to work within you, daily transforming your heart and your desires. If you truly love God, then His Word will never be boring.
I’ll leave you with a short text to hide in your heart.
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night” (Ps. 1:1-2).
A version of this article first appeared in the June 2025 issue of “Contender, the FRCA Youth Magazine” under the title “Boring Bible” and it is reprinted here with permission.
News
Canada just about had a ballot as tall as you
On August 18, voters in the riding of Battle River–Crowfoot will go to the polls to elect one of the 214 candidates on the ballot. This is the largest number of candidates in Canadian history to compete for a single parliamentary seat, far surpassing the previous record of 91, which last occurred in the Carleton riding during the 2025 election
Pierre Poilievre was one of the 91 names on the 2025 Carleton riding ballot.
Why are so many people running? Well, 201 of the candidates share the same official agent, Tomas Szuchewycz, and seem to be part of a protest group, called the "Longest Ballot Committee” (LBC). While the LBC may have some connections with the old satirical Rhinoceros Party (best known for its pledge to repeal the law of gravity), this time they are at least pretending to make a serious point.
I say pretending because if they wanted to make a serious point, you’d think they would try to get the word out. But only 24 of their 201 candidates bothered to submit a website to Elections Canada, half of which linked only to YouTube music videos about the candidate. Another candidate's page stated, “I’m doing this out of spite” and said little else. Only a half dozen or so attempted a policy statement. And the LBC’s Bluesky page vaguely stated they wanted “decisions on election law” passed on to “an independent, non-partisan body, such as a citizens’ assembly to decide.” And how might someone get onto such a body? Appointed? If so, by who? Or elected? By what process? No ready answers could be found.
The real reason for this flood of candidates can be traced to a 2017 ruling that struck down the $1,000 deposit requirement. The government defended the requirement as a way of heading off frivolous candidates, but Justice Avril Inglis rejected that argument. She pointed to the 27 Rhinoceros Party candidates who had run in the 2017 federal election and “apparently caused no harm to the integrity of the electoral process.”
But 27 joke candidates spread across the country is very different from 200 running in one. The 2025 Carleton riding ballot, with 91 candidates (see picture), was one meter long. With the prospects of a two-meter long ballot this time, Elections Canada has gone with a write-in ballot. As a National Post article put it, “what would have been Canada’s longest-ever ballot has become its shortest-ever.”
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, running in this riding and now up against Long Ballot Committee candidates for the second time this year, made three suggestions that would stop the LBC from running hundreds of candidates again:
- Raise the bar for candidate nominations by requiring 0.5% of the population in any given riding to sign, not just 100 people (that would work out to about 400 people on average)
- Require that each signature in support of a candidate be exclusive, with no signatory permitted to endorse more than one candidate in the same election
- Restrict official agents to representing only a single election candidate at any given time
While the LBC’s fuss is worth reining in, we shouldn’t want a lot of restrictions on who can run – too many restrictions could become a means for already organized big parties to squelch any smaller challengers from getting off the ground (like the Reform Party back in the late 80s). The third suggestion could hurt the Christian Heritage Party, which has a serious message to share, but not a lot of staff to go around.
So, what’s the smallest change that could be made and still be effective? What could help, but not squelch? All that would be needed is Poilievre’s second suggestion. The 201 LBC candidates likely used the same 100 voters’ signatures again and again, but this change would have required them to get a total of 20,100 different people to nominate their candidates from a riding in which there are only 85,000 eligible voters.
Ballot photo is adapted from a photo by Harry Kusumah Hidajat, and is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Editorial cartoon at the top was created with ChatGPT
Today's Devotional
August 7 - Blessed by the greater one
“Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him.” - Genesis 14:18,19a
Scripture reading: Genesis 14:1-24
Remember Lot, with the dollar signs in his eyes? We should have been concerned when Lot settled next to Sodom. Soon the whole region is in trouble. Lot and his family are taken captive. Word >
Today's Manna Podcast
A future blessing
Serving #927 of Manna, prepared by D. VandeBurgt, is called "A future blessing".
