Charles Spurgeon on How to Read the Bibleናሙና

Scripture reading is our spiritual mealtime. Sound the gong and call in every faculty to the Lord’s own table to feast upon the precious meat that is now to be partaken of, or, rather, ring the church bell as for worship, for the studying of the Holy Scripture ought to be as solemn a deed as when we lift the psalm upon the Sabbath day in the courts of the Lord’s house.

If these things be so, you will see at once, dear friends, that if you are to understand what you read, you will need to meditate upon it. Some passages of Scripture lie clear before us—blessed shallows in which the lambs may wade. But there are deeps in which our mind might rather drown herself than swim with pleasure if she came there without caution. There are texts of Scripture that are made and constructed on purpose to make us think. By this means, among others, our heavenly Father would educate us for heaven—by making us think our way into divine mysteries. Hence He puts the word in a somewhat involved form to compel us to meditate upon it before we reach the sweetness of it. He might, you know, have explained it to us so that we might catch the thought in a minute, but He does not please to do so in every case.

Many of the veils that are cast over Scripture are not meant to hide the meaning from the diligent but to compel the mind to be active, for oftentimes, the diligence of the heart in seeking to know the divine mind does the heart more good than the knowledge itself. Meditation and careful thought exercise us and strengthen us for the reception of the yet more lofty truths.

I have heard that the mothers in the Balearic Isles, in the old times, who wanted to bring their boys up to be good slingers, would put their dinners up above them where they could not get at them until they threw a stone and fetched them down. Our Lord wishes us to be good slingers, and He puts up some precious truth in a lofty place where we cannot get it down except by slinging at it. At last, we hit the mark and find food for our souls. Then have we the double benefit of learning the art of meditation and partaking of the sweet truth that it has brought within our reach.

We must meditate, brothers. These grapes will yield no wine till we tread upon them. These olives must be put under the wheel and pressed again and again that the oil may flow therefrom. In a dish of nuts, you may know which nut has been eaten because there is a little hole that the insect has punctured through the shell—just a little hole, and then inside there is the living thing eating up the kernel. Well, it is a grand thing to bore through the shell of the letter and then to live inside feeding upon the kernel. I would wish to be such a little worm as that, living within and upon the Word of God, having bored my way through the shell and having reached the innermost mystery of the blessed gospel.