By David ReayTuesday 22 May 2018LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 2 minutes
Read Luke 24:25-27
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (NIV)
Have you ever been reading a part of the Bible and discovering something you had never found before? It is so common to read the Bible regularly and yet not have insight into some of it. We read in a routine way that doesn’t let the Holy Spirit lead us. Or we read with our own set of predetermined beliefs that act as a filter so that we only grasp what we want to hear from it.
Of course we must beware of searching after novelty. Be very wary of reckoning you have discovered some truth in the Scripture that no-one else has ever come across! We can read things into the Bible that come from within us, not from the heart and mind of God.
And yet as our passage reminds us, we can miss important parts of its message. These travellers on the Emmaus road probably knew the Scriptures but were reading them with blinkers on. They had a preconceived idea of the Messiah so couldn’t see the truth about him. They needed Jesus to open their eyes.
We are to read the Scriptures with the help of Jesus’ Spirit. We are to read them with an openness to having our views challenged, with a hope of gaining fresh insight. Not with the aim of inventing some new truth, but with the aim of discerning the truth that has always been there on the other side of our blindness.
Blessings
David Reay