Quality or Quantity?
What is more important to you – quality or quantity? I know most of us would respond that ‘it depends’.
So, what about the Bible – do you think reading great quantities of the Bible, or small areas in great detail is better?
Be careful, it’s a trick question…
Most of the encouragement I see in the ‘blogosphere’ seems to point towards quality. Take your time when you are reading your Bible. Spend time with each verse, with each word even, coming to grips with what God is saying to you. And really, there is nothing wrong with that advice – it is in fact good general advice – there is so much in there that even after years and decades of study, it will continue to bring new revelation to you, and bear new fruit in your life.
But sometimes, and this has happened to me in the past, we lose focus of the big picture. We spend so much time focusing on one little thing, one little verse, one little doctrine, that we forget what the whole book is about. We lose sight of things like God’s creation, we lose sight of the history of Israel and all that it can mean for us now, and we lose sight of Jesus and what He has done for us.
And so, I would encourage both. Quality AND quantity. Broad strokes and fine detail.
Take the time to meditate on a single verse, especially one that is grabbing you, where God may be speaking to you right now.
But also take the time to ‘read through’ whole sections of the Bible. Whole chapters, whole books even. And when you do, I promise you will be surprised – surprised how much we can also learn when we focus on the big picture of what God is doing had has done since the creation of the world…
I like your point Drewe, broad strokes and fine detail. Many of the books are meant to be read as a collection. Such as the Pentateuch, Minor Prophets and the Wisdom books. And then even within the OT as a whole, we can see a number of repeated ‘exodus’ themes.