One of my most precious experiences as a young Christian was learning to hear God’s voice.

A friend, whom I’ll call Brenda, was also eager to hear from God. But after a while, she quit reading the Bible.

“The people in Scripture heard God,” Brenda explained, “and so do I. Since I can hear God for myself, why do I need to read about what they heard?”

My concerns about this development only intensified when Brenda came to me one day with her newest revelation, claiming Christians would one day become the fourth member of the Trinity.

Arithmetic problems aside, I knew the statement was theologically dangerous.

“That’s not in the Bible,” I objected.

“Of course it’s not,” Brenda said. “It was revealed only last week.”

To my relief, Brenda eventually realized she was wrong, but it was neglecting Scripture’s priority that enabled her to violate its doctrinal boundaries to begin with.

Even as we learn from experience, traditions, and spiritual leaders, Scripture must remain our foundation.

When 8-year-old Josiah became king, he followed God (2 Kings 22:1–2). But Josiah did not know God’s Law, even though the king was supposed to study it daily (Deuteronomy 17:18–20).

Although God had given Israel the special privilege of having His Law, the people had forgotten it during Manasseh’s long and sinful reign.

When Josiah was 26, he ordered repair work to the temple. In antiquity, people often stored foundation documents in public buildings, including temples.

During renovations, the high priest discovered the book of the Law. When the royal scribe read it to Josiah, the king realized Judah had been disobeying God. The Law’s curses clearly doomed Judah!

Even among those who read the Bible regularly, how many of us get worked up about it?

As for Josiah, he tore his clothes in mourning. He really believed God’s warnings. And the way Josiah honored Scripture changed the course of history.

Much like Josiah’s generation, today’s Church needs to return to God’s Word. The share of U.S. adults personally interacting with Scripture outside of church declined 15 percentage points over the past decade, from 53% in 2014 to 38% in 2024, according to American Bible Society (ABS).

Underlining the need for a fresh awakening, Joseph Castleberry lamented in the Winter 2025 issue of Influence, “Many Christians are unfamiliar with the basics of Scripture and rarely read it on their own.”

Holy Word

King Josiah listened to the Law (2 Kings 22:10), acknowledged its implications (verse 11), and then sought fuller understanding by prophetic insight (verses 13–20).

Jesus confronted the religious leaders of His day who ignored Scripture to uphold their traditions (Mark 7:9).

After tearing his robes, Josiah sent servants to inquire from the prophetess Huldah. She confirmed what Josiah already suspected: Judgment lay on the horizon (verse 16). But because Josiah had taken God’s message so seriously, that judgment would not come during his lifetime (verses 18–20).

May we be like Josiah and others who tremble at the revelation of Scripture.

Ezra led a prayer of repentance after gathering “everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel” (Ezra 9:4).

Though persecuted, the psalmist declared, “My heart trembles at your word” (Psalm 119:161).

The Lord told Isaiah, “These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.”

Scripture invites us to meditate on God’s truth day and night (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2). Many voices vie for our attention, but nothing compares with God’s Word. Why would we want to meditate on anything else?

No Substitutes

God’s Not Dead author Rice Broocks quipped to me that Bible-disengaged Christianity is like the professional wrestling trope where the bad guy knocks out the referee so there are no more rules.

During the Middle Ages, few people could read, and most didn’t own books. Christians had to rely on what ministers told them about Scripture.

Today, 77% of Americans own at least one copy of the Bible, according to ABS. We can even access Scripture on the electronic devices most of us carry in our pockets. Yet too many Christians still depend on others — preachers or, worse, social media — to tell them what God’s Word says.

Rather than seizing vast opportunities to read the Bible for themselves, many believers are neglecting Scripture. After all, who needs to read the Bible when there are so many public personalities offering to summarize it for us?

Going back to Scripture weans us off alternative authorities, from personal experience to human opinions.

John Wesley drew on experience, tradition, and reason, but he judged them all at the bar of Scripture, his primary authority.

Scripture invites us to embrace the experience of the Spirit (e.g., Acts 15:4,7–8,12,14). But the Bible, where virtually all Christians can find and work from common ground, also lays out divinely ordained boundaries for interpreting experience.

Sadly, some charismatic teachers today use the Spirit’s name to undermine Scripture, valuing their “revelation” of a text’s meaning over what the third member of the Trinity inspired the biblical author to say in context.

Even biblical prophets sometimes misunderstood God (e.g., 1 Samuel 16:6–7; 2 Samuel 7:3–4; Acts 21:4,11–14), but the Bible is not just a collection of some people’s understanding. It’s a canon — a term that means a measuring stick. It’s how we evaluate every other claim to revelation.

There were many false prophets in Judah before Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, but Jeremiah spoke God’s true message.

Although Jeremiah’s generation largely rejected him, it soon became apparent who had prophesied the truth (2 Chronicles 36:22; Ezra 1:1; Daniel 9:2). Consequently, Jeremiah’s writings made it into the Bible, while the words of those false prophets were mostly forgotten.

Prophecies require testing (1 Corinthians 14:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:20–22). And the first test of prophecy is whether it agrees with what God has already revealed in Scripture.

All Scripture is Spirit-inspired and beneficial for all the sorts of good works that ministers are supposed to do, such as teaching and correcting (2 Timothy 3:16–4:2). This becomes all the more important in a post-truth age when religious consumers follow those who tell them only what they want to hear (4:3–4).

Critics of the First Great Awakening denounced the emotional expressions present, such as weeping or falling. Jonathan Edwards replied that these did not disqualify true revival. Edwards insisted, however, that the distinguishing marks of true revival include transformed lives in keeping with God’s Word.

Many early Pentecostals believed theirs would be the final revival for evangelizing the world before Christ’s return.

Loving Scripture
is an expression
of love for God.

Smith Wigglesworth, known for his ministry of healing, was among them. Yet toward the end of his life, Wigglesworth worried that many of his fellow Pentecostals were so focused on spiritual experiences they were neglecting the Bible.

One of his associates recalls that in 1947, Wigglesworth prophesied his expectation for the future. Someday, God’s people would bring together Word and Spirit, and that would be a revival like the world had never seen.

The Spirit attests the Word, which He inspired. And the Word summons us to heed the Spirit. We cannot truly embrace one without the other.

Like experience, tradition must yield to the Bible’s authority. Many ancient and modern Church traditions impart wisdom. However, traditions should never take the place of God’s Word.

Jesus confronted the religious leaders of His day who ignored Scripture to uphold their traditions (Mark 7:9).

Of course, we are all vulnerable to the error of defaulting to tradition. During my time at Central Bible College, a fellow student and I were debating a minor doctrinal point.

At the end of the discussion, my friend conceded that his interpretation of what the Bible said on the issue was wrong. Nevertheless, he insisted he would go on believing the misinterpretation because that was what he had always heard growing up.

Despite our shared belief that the Bible is God’s Word, my friend stubbornly favored tradition over biblical revelation.

Like experience and tradition, reason can help us understand God’s Word, but is ultimately subject to it.

There is no shortage of self-promoting ministers online who make biblically questionable claims without acknowledging arguments to the contrary.

Meanwhile, some liberal theologians undermine what the Bible teaches about such things as sexual morality and miracles.

But as Job learned, God is infinitely smarter than people who think they know it all (Job 38–41).

The Bible regularly challenges our prevailing culture. What should we do, for example, when a particular biblical teaching differs from our favored political party’s platform on that point? What happens when Scripture teaches something about sacrificing for Jesus that nobody around us seems to take seriously?

God’s Word challenges us all. Sometimes it brings discomfort, as when we read the story of the rich young man (Matthew 19:16–30). Many commentators expend more effort trying to explain what that account doesn’t demand from us than what it does.

Scripture can also make us uncomfortable by challenging us to greater faith. For example, it’s easy to criticize Peter for sinking when he tried to walk on water, even though, like the other disciples, most of us never even get out of the boat.

We need to nurture the flock gently and make sure our speech is full of grace. But if we want to present our hearers mature in Christ (Colossians 1:28), we cannot limit the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:26–27) to its most marketable elements.

Returning to Scripture

As Castleberry emphasizes, “There is a desperate need for effective Bible preaching and teaching. Such communication requires passion for studying the Word.”

While others can also teach the Word (Colossians 3:16), God has assigned this role especially to pastors (1 Timothy 3:2; 4:13–16; 2 Timothy 2:24; Titus 1:9). And when believers are not engaging Scripture, pastors have the greatest responsibility to remedy the situation.

This is the same responsibility God gave Old Testament priests, though they often failed to embrace it (Leviticus 10:8–11; Deuteronomy 31:9–11; Hosea 4:5–6,9).

Spiritual authority doesn’t mean bossing people around. Rather, God tasks ministry leaders with teaching people and calling them back to His Word. We can trust His Spirit to speak through us as we obey that calling faithfully.

We should want
to hear God more
than tradition or
our own desires.

The true gospel has enormous competition. Electronic devices continually distract people from what matters most. And some teaching online fits the description in Proverbs 18:2: “Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.”

Even most regular churchgoers hear from their pastors only once weekly, an inadequate spiritual diet by itself. In our preaching, therefore, we need to encourage hearers to engage the Bible for themselves.

Deuteronomy 6:5–6 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.”

Loving Scripture is an expression of love for God. The Lord instructed His people to discuss Scripture wherever they were, at all times of the day (Deuteronomy 6:7). They were to surround themselves with reminders of God’s truths (Deuteronomy 6:8–9).

If we are to preach Bible engagement, we must model it ourselves. Cramming on Saturday night for Sunday’s sermon might work in a pinch, but a regular habit of Bible study makes it easier to live and preach God’s truth.

Ezra devoted himself to three things: studying, living, and teaching Scripture (Ezra 7:10). Today’s ministry leaders must do the same.

Pastors can also help model better ways of Bible reading through expository preaching — that is, by explaining an entire passage at a time rather than focusing on a single verse or topic.

Some popular models of preaching emphasize personal stories. Illustrations can be extremely valuable for communicating a point. In the current crisis of declining Bible engagement, however, we need to keep central the one source we know is true: Scripture.

Preachers must pay attention to context. I find that even many seminarians habitually employ verses according to common usage rather than considering what they mean in context.

Americans live in a culture of sound bites, of mere intellectual nuggets trimmed for convenience. In the Church, we often hear and use Bible snippets, and subsist on mushy spiritual diets someone else has already chewed for us.

When I teach in Nigeria, I can start a verse and expect my students to finish it. But in the U.S., I sometimes have to explain that I am citing Scripture before hearers recognize the allusion.

Tracing a theme through a particular Bible book is one way to preach topically while retaining context. God inspired biblical writers one book at a time. The first Christians often heard a whole book, such as Mark or Romans, read all the way through.

Most churchgoers today will not sit through an hour-long Bible reading, but we can explain a single passage or theme in light of the book’s context.

As congregants utilize social media, we can recommend some of the more helpful online resources, such as The Bible Project, or podcasts and videos by solid, biblically faithful, Spirit-led scholars and expositors.

Church members with an aversion to reading can listen to the Bible, a practice especially engaging for Bible narratives.

Listening to the Bible is a time-honored practice. Many of the earliest Christians couldn’t read, and most didn’t have personal copies of Scripture, so they learned by listening.

Some detailed arguments in the Bible, however, invite careful study. This calls for the discipline of attentive reading. Marking verses and writing down observations help keep readers attentive and engaging with the text. In interpretation, context always matters, and background is valuable.

Above all, we must approach the Bible with an honest heart. We should want to hear God more than tradition or our own desires.

As Scripture teaches us: The fear of (reverence for) the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).

God has commissioned us to bring His Church back to His Holy Word. His anointing will be commensurate with the task. May our generation heed Scripture, as Josiah did, and may we set our hearts like Ezra to understand, obey and teach it.

This article appears in the Spring 2025 issue of Influence magazine.