A Spurgeon a day...

Update: Before I get to the main topic of the post, this is just a personal update. During the last lockdown, when I was working from home every day and gaining time because I didn't have to commute, I started to write some blog posts in order to put some of my thoughts and interests into words. In the last six months, with a hectic return to working in the school building (I'm a teacher) and with my wife returning to work after maternity leave, there simply hasn't been the time. I continue to make time to read my Bible every day and the article below shows another regular commitment, but most of what I'm writing at the moment is my Bible Study notes, notes of sermons I've listened to or read and a few other thoughts that I write in my journal. Maybe some of those will get typed up on this blog at some point. Over the last two weeks I have been working from home again most days as the schools are closed (or rather, closed to most students). I head into the building once or twice a week to fulfil various responsibilities, but otherwise I am teaching video lessons from my desk in our tiny box room! That's where I'm writing from now! So you never know, I might get the chance to write a few more blog posts. Perhaps I'll just keep them short and snappy, a few thoughts here and there. We'll see!

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#ReadingSpurgeon

A few weeks ago, someone I follow on Twitter shared his intention to start reading the sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 - 1892) on 1st January 2021. He set up a Twitter account @ReadingSpurgeon which gives a plan for reading either a sermon per day or a sermon per week, as well as tweeting quotes from the daily sermon. I duly followed, checked my Kindle and found that I had downloaded Spurgeon's sermons last year, having been recommended to read Spurgeon by various preachers. I was all set!

Now, circumstances will likely change, but so far I have managed to keep up with all 20 days. I say that, not to boast or parade it as an achievement, but to witness to the extraordinary work of the Lord in my life. Just a few years ago, I couldn't even manage to read my Bible on 20 consecutive days, let alone any 'extra-curricular' reading. So when I read the famous Spurgeon sermon about The Bible a few days ago, there were many quotes that I knew used to apply to me:

"There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write 'damnation' with your fingers"

"Many people have not turned over its pages for a long time and God might say unto them, 'I have written unto you the great things of My law, but they have been accounted unto you a strange thing'"

"If this is the Word of God, what will become of some of you who have not read it for the last month?"

How many months did I go without willingly and regularly sitting down to read God's word? I, who have claimed to be a Christian since I was five, was making no effort to commit to the reading and study of the all-sufficient and infallible word of my Saviour God. I could easily quote 2 Timothy 3, "all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching" but where was the evidence of it in my life?

I came from a background where the Scripture was regularly taught. My parents would read the Bible and pray with my brother and me every morning, right up until the day I moved out and got married! I attended two or three Bible readings every week and my father even worked at a Bible distributors.

As a four year old I loved reading. My infant school once had to borrow additional books as I had read all of the books for my age group. As a six year old I loved the library summer holiday reading challenge. As a 12 year old starting secondary school I was delighted to enter the school library and choose some new reading challenges - Lord of the Rings and Les Misérables are among those I remember borrowing. Yet until last year, at the age of 30, I had never read my Bible from cover to cover. (By this I mean systematically - I am about to go on to say that reading the Bible cover to cover in one year is not the only way one can be committed to God's Word)

Now maybe a four year old, six year old or even 12 year old can be forgiven for that. But a 30 year old? Oh yes I knew my Bible fairly well. I could tell you which book a quotation could be found in, mention little-known Bible characters or give you an overview of the contents of each book in the Bible (except perhaps the minor prophets), but would I be found devouring the Word of God and making it a top priority in my day? To my shame, no.

I could analyse the various things that prevented me from reading the Word of God, and indeed eventually diminished my love of reading anything. Computer games and films were among the things that wasted my time. Several people and incidents in my teenage life shook my faith. In my twenties, having felt restricted in what I'd been able to do in my earlier life, I over compensated and signed up to just about every work commitment, music performance and social event possible. However I believe one of the worst of these was the complacent and even arrogant belief that 'I know the Bible better than most Christians'. Oh how much I wish I could go back to my teenage or even 23 year old self and warn myself of the dangers and distractions that would follow and show myself the immense blessings connected with the daily digestion of God's holy message.

Last year I finally managed it. I'd got back into reading Christian books. Several Francis Chan and John Lennox books had been added to my library in recent years. But now I needed to read the Divine Author. I didn't have a plan, I just knew I needed to read the Bible as much as I could. I started in Hebrews, which I'd been studying with my Bible Study group. I went to John's gospel, then to his epistles. In February I went back and started the Old Testament, taking the opportunity to read John Lennox's book on Joseph alongside the second half of Genesis. I suffered the all-too-familiar stumble when I got to the rest of the Pentateuch. How many times before had I started to read my Bible through, only to stop when the passages got less-familiar or, dare I say it, boring? From the dates I marked in my Bible I can see that it was slow work getting past Exodus. I jumped back to the New Testament for a while and didn't start Numbers until May. Finally I got going with the Old Testament again and I can see that I read from Numbers to 1 Chronicles in the same month.

But now I realised there was another problem. Was I simply reading in order to tick off an achievement? For a while, I believe that may have been the case. And yet, something was changing. I've mentioned in my personal introduction the extra time that the lockdown gave me and now I was actually using the time. Forget all the summer holidays I used to waste doing nothing in particular - now my heart was ignited. Now the Scriptures were a part of my life. Every morning over breakfast; every night as I sat in bed before switching the light off; every Sunday as Church Online finished: I would be reading my Bible. Suddenly it was looking like a Bible that was being read, with pencil notes filling the margins and the yellowy marks of regular page turning! And I wanted to learn more about what I was reading. Forget the Bible knowledge I thought I had before, now I was praying over the Scriptures. Now I was listening to sermons and reading commentaries to find out what other believers said about the passages I was reading. I didn't just want to read - now I needed to!

I ticked off my final book of the Bible, Ephesians, on 26th November 2020. I had read the Bible with five weeks to spare! Since then I have read Ephesians twice more and read John's Gospel and nearly every epistle before the end of December. John's First Epistle is the book I'm currently studying with my group and I estimate I have read it at least ten times through in the last year.

So what of this year? Well, I'm most of the way through Exodus already! But now I want to go further. My Bible has 1251 pages. That 'achievement' of reading the Bible in one year came from an average of 3.4 pages per day! My average so far this year is quite a bit higher and I'd love to try and read the New Testament at least three times. But how much am I taking in? A few days ago, the daily Spurgeon sermon was called 'Joseph Attacked By The Archers', using the words from Jacob's blessing of Joseph in Genesis 49, but I didn't recognise the reference. I'd read that Scripture just days before but clearly hadn't taken it in. Am I falling back into the trap of trying to tick off an achievement?

In 2021 I still don't have a plan. I will prioritise reading the Word of God, keeping it part of my morning and evening routine. I will pick out passages to study in great depth. I have just done a study on a single verse ("Set up the tabernacle according to the plan shown you on the mountain." Exodus 26:30). My notes for the Bible Study group have become pretty extensive and, although we don't cover every point I've written down, it has done me no end of good to study verse by verse in such detail.

John MacArthur's advice, mentioned in his Study Bible, is to read a short book or section of a longer book every day for a month, then move on to another. In less than 3 years you will have read the entire New Testament in this way and will know it so well from the 30 times you have read each section. I have just started reading Nate Pickowicz's new book 'How To Eat Your Bible'. So far I have been struck by how similar his story seems to be to mine. He references the MacArthur plan, which he develops in his own seven year reading plan. I may well try that when I've read some more of the book.

So where does that leave me with Reading Spurgeon? Can someone who only recently managed to read his Bible regularly commit to reading something else as well? I believe so. Reading the sermons and writings of godly men helps to build on the scriptures I've read. Spurgeon's poetic style is so easy to read and yet also contains such a deep knowledge of Scripture and love for the Lord Jesus that it makes me desire it too. Christianity is not just about head knowledge but about the heart. It's not that I read or listen to somebody and think "I wish I knew WHAT he knows" but "I wish I knew WHO he knows". I know Jesus, but I want to know Him better. I hope that the 'Prince of Preachers' will help teach me more about the Prince of Peace.

Spurgeon himself said "Visit many good books, but live in the Bible." That will need to be my motto if I am to get that balance right and not let books, however wholesome, take away from my Bible reading.

I thank God that I am reading again. My wife bought me a Kindle for my last birthday, partly for the convenience of it (I can read late at night without keeping the light on and disturbing her) but I think also to try and stem the flow of the new books I was buying! I certainly wouldn't have the space or finances to buy the Spurgeon sermons in a hard copy - have you seen how many there are?! My Kindle is filling up quickly with Bibles, commentaries, Spurgeon, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Nate Pickowicz, A.W. Tozer, J.C. Ryle and many more! It's not the same as holding a real book in your hands and I will continue to buy actual, real, physical books. I have just bought a few second-hand volumes of the Martyn Lloyd-Jones commentaries on Romans - apparently these give amazing insights into that wonderful epistle. I have also been trying to get into reading Jonathan Edwards. I bought the two-volume set of his complete works last year, although the tiny print doesn't lend itself to a nice bedtime read!

I hope I will have time to share some of the things I read this year, whether in the Bible, Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones or Edwards! Pray for me that I will continue to love reading, especially the Scriptures, and I will pray that many more find their food in God's Word.

I'll close with another quote of Spurgeon, which sums up what I have learned about making time for reading:

"The old proverb declares that they who would be rich must rise early; surely those who would be rich towards God must do so".