Joe: Hi everyone, thank you all for joining us again. In this segment we'll be covering
more from Chapter 3 in Volume 3 of the "Basic Elements of the Christian Life."
The title of this chapter is "Pray-reading the Word." Tom, in our last segment we talked about how
pray-reading the Word and being nourished by the Word is something for new believers
and young believers, but is this something only for new believers or is it something that we can all do?
Tom: Well, certainly new believers need to
learn how to take the Word of God as nourishment but I believe every Christian, every believer
should eat the Lord this way every day of their whole Christian life. I would like to
testify and I could let you know that I got on to this, I learned how to pray-read over 40
years ago when I was still a high-schooler. In fact, I taught some of my friends, Christians
friends how to pray-read and we would pray-read together at school, and after school, and
on the bus and different places. But I also can testify that nearly every day of 40 years,
pray-reading has been a part of my life; to be able to take the word of God by praying
and exercising my spirit with the Word has been a tremendous benefit and a great nourishment
to me for many, many years. I believe everybody should pray-read.
Joe: Okay, so this is something definitely that everyone can do no matter how old we
are, how long we've been saved, we can receive nourishment from the Word. So but anybody who
is learning how to do this for the first time, can you share with us how to pray-read the Word, what this looks like?
Tom: Sure, you know Ephesians chapter 6 verses 17 and 18,
speaking about the spiritual warfare and the weapons, it has a verse that says,
in verse 17, "And receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which
Spirit is the Word of God." Then verse 18 continues, "By means of all prayer and petition."
The way for us to be nourished with the Word, the way for us to receive the Word of God
as food is to pray, is to take the Word of God by means of prayer. And it says by means of all prayer.
That means all kinds of prayer. It can be loud prayers, quiet prayers, short prayers,
long prayers, it can be any kind of prayer. And what I was helped to do was to
take the words of the Bible and turn them into a personal utterance to God.
In other words, take what is written there and convert it into a personal prayer. I found out that
this entire Bible can be a prayer book by praying the words, words by word and adding
in my personal supplication, my personal praise, or my personal requests in the midst.
I would like to give an example. One of the verses that is so enjoyable on this particular topic
is Matthew 4:4, "But he answered and said, it is written, 'Man shall not live on bread
alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God." And you could
take this word and you could pray, "Man shall not live on bread alone. Oh Lord, thank You.
Oh, I cannot live just on bread. Oh Lord, I need more than bread; man shall not live on bread alone.
Oh Lord, feed me this morning. Feed me today. But on every word. Oh Lord,
thank You for your Word. Every word, oh, every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God.
Lord, how I thank You for Your Word. I come this morning to take You as the Word as the bread
that I can live on, the word that proceeds out through the mouth of God." To take the
Word of God like this in a prayerful way with a praying spirit is the way to be nourished.
Actually, there are many examples of devout believers in the previous centuries that practice this.
They would pray with the Word and this became a solid part of their life.
I believe every Christian should pray with the Word.
Joe: It's been very helpful to see that in order to be nourished by the Word we can come to the Bible and to pray over what we're reading,
and so this is what we call pray-reading. And the way to do this is just to turn the
words of the Bible into our prayer to the Lord. Tom, thank you for joining us today
and thank you all for joining us for these segments on "Pray-reading the Word."