Chapter 3 Scripture for Your Own Soul

Reading for Yourself, Not Just for Sunday There is a real danger in having Bible study be a professional activity rather than a personal one. When every time you open your Bible it is to extract content for preaching or teaching, the Word stops working on you and starts working for you. The difference is significant. A Word that works on you humbles you, corrects you, challenges you, comforts you, exposes you. A Word that works for you becomes raw material — a quarry you mine for others' benefit while remaining largely unchanged yourself. Build a reading life that includes Scripture consumed for your own soul — with no intention of preaching it, no notes for a sermon, no extraction for content. Just you, the text, and the Holy Spirit who inspired it. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." — Psalm 119:105 Practices for Personal Scripture Engagement Lectio divina — the ancient practice of slow, reflective reading of Scripture — is one of the most underused tools in a modern pastor's spiritual life. Rather than reading for coverage, you read a small passage slowly, multiple times, listening for what the Spirit draws your attention to. Memorization is another powerful practice. The Word that is stored in your memory is the Word that can encounter you at 2am when you can't sleep, or in the hospital room when you forgot your Bible, or in the moment of temptation when you need it most. Keep a separate personal Bible — one in which you mark what God speaks to you, not what you plan to preach. The distinction matters. It creates a record of God's work in you, not just through you. The pastor who only reads the Bible to preach it will eventually have nothing to say. The pastor who reads it to be changed will always have something real to give.