Our Principal Weapon

June 22, 2010

I was having a conversation with a friend and brother in Christ the other day about fighting sin with God’s Word. He expressed a desire to know God’s Word better for many reasons, but especially so that he might be able to use it when confronted with temptation and sin. His heart was in line with what J.C. Ryle said when he wrote,

We must to be diligent readers of our Bibles. The Word is the sword of the Spirit. We shall never fight a good fight, if we do not use it as our principal weapon. The Word is the lamp for our feet. We shall never keep the king’s highway to heaven, if we do not journey by its light. There is not enough Bible-reading among us. It is not sufficient to have the Book. We must actually read it, and pray over it ourselves. It will do us no good, if it only lies still in our houses. We must be actually familiar with its contents, and have its texts stored in our memories and minds. Knowledge of the Bible never comes by intuition. It can only be obtained by diligent, regular, daily, attentive, wakeful reading. (J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986], p. 26)

I pray that we would each be diligent readers of God’s Word, so that we might fight the good fight with our “principal weapon.”

HT: Erik

Under Blog, Reflections