We saw last week that the Bible is the divinely inspired, inerrant, infallible, authentic, and perfect Word of God. We should value our Bibles. We do not worship them as we would worship our Lord, but we are to value them. Just think, as we stand here and hold our Bibles we hold in our hands the precious Word of God. Let that sink in a moment. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a great Baptist preacher/pastor in England in the 1800s. He shared a message with his congregation titled, “How To Read The Bible.” I am not going to try to preach Spurgeon’s message, but reading the sermon caused me to consider how I read the Scriptures (and, possibly, how many who are saved read it) as well as consider how I should read them. In Spurgeon’s day he said, “I am afraid that this is a magazine reading age, a newapaper reading age, a periodical reading age, but not so much a Bible reading age as it ought to be.” Today is not much different except that we are in an electronic age. Most of our reading today is likely done online, and there is more available to read than in Spurgeon’s day. Tons of online magazines, newspapers, articles, etc. are available to us. How much of our time does the reading of Facebook posts take up on a daily basis? (And, of course, we know that everything we read on Facebook is true, right?) There was a time when people had a scant supply of reading material, but they found a whole library to read from in the Bible. Too much “Bible reading” today is little more than merely scanning the Scriptures. But Jesus said, “Search the scriptures . . . ” (John 5:39). [SEARCH = to seek; to investigate. (An investigation involves more than mere scanning.)] The setting of part of our text - Matthew 12:1-8. Jesus and His disciples are going through a field of corn on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and “began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.” [PLUCK = pull off. Some say they were rubbing/rolling the ears of corn in their hands (to remove the husks or whatever might have been on them).] The scribes and Pharisees viewed this as “threshing” the corn, which was forbidden on the Sabbath (even when one was hungry), so they called Him into question. Notice the Lord’s answer, (vs. 3) “Have ye not read?” (vs. 5) “Have ye not read?” (Essentially, “Haven’t you read the Scriptures?”) The scribes and Pharisees were great readers of the Law. The Pharisees were the lawyers. Surely they should have read. The scribes scrupulously copied the Law, and they should have read. They even made notes as to which was the middle verse of the Old Testament, which was halfway to the middle, how many times a word occurred, and even how many times a letter occurred, the size of the letter, and it peculiar position. The Lord's question was a cutting inquiry to these intense readers of the Law. Jesus insinuated that though they might have read the words, they missed the true meaning of what they read - (vs. 7) “But if ye had known what this meaneth . . .” That is the equivalent of, “You have not read because you have not understood. Your eyes have gone over the words, and you have counted the letters, you have marked the position of each verse and word, you have said learned things about all the books, yet you have not acquired the art of reading. You have not read it, for you do not understand it.” Sadly, much of what we call Bible “reading” is not true reading at all. One source defines “reading” as “the complex process of interpreting written symbols (letters, words) to understand meaning.” Webster’s Dictionary says it is “to receive or take in the sense of.” If we are not careful in our reading, our eyes will pass over the words and the sentences will go over our minds without our ever understanding what we have seen. This can happen easily, especially when we set aside a certain number of chapters or verses we want to read on a daily basis. When we try to “squeeze in” our reading at the end of the day. When we try to read hurriedly in order to “get on to the next thing on our schedule.” In order to truly read the Scriptures we must:

I. SEEK AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT WE READ.

II. SEE THE INSTRUCTION OF THE WORD.

III. SATISFY YOUR SOUL WITH THE BLESSINGS OF THE WORD.