Charles Spurgeon—the Prince of Preachers—is reported to have said of John Bunyan—the author of Pilgrim’s Progress:
Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like the reading the Bible itself. He had read it till his very soul was saturated with Scripture…Prick him anywhere—his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God.1
Oh that we might be Christian women who “bleed Bible!” Women who can say with the Apostle Paul: “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:9). God’s pleasure is our ambition, His glory our delight, obedience to His Word our motivation, Christ our treasure.
Women whose noses are fixed in the Book and not the latest gossip or fashion magazine; whose hours are well spent and not eaten away by the locusts of social media, television shows and distasteful readings (Joel 2:25). Women, so filled with the Word that they resound the Bible and not the culture around.
Women whose lives have become a killing field for sin (Romans 8:13). They actively yield to the Spirit’s maturing work in their hearts and the fruit of that work is seen in their love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). His work leaves them thirsty for God’s Word and they drink it in generously (John 7:37-38).
They consume the Word until their Jesus, their faith, and their Christianity is defined—not by the whims of the culture; not by the philosophies of the age, not by the deceptive judgments of their own hearts but—by the Book itself. They sit under the bible, allowing its glaring truth to dissect their hearts and expose sin (Psalm 139:23-24). Yet, they always leave whole—stitched and held together by the Word’s assurance of justification, sanctification and preserving grace for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:29-30).
Sisters, I don’t speak here of petty surface glances of the Word; just enough to make you feel good about your Christianity. I speak of women who understand that they are commanded to present themselves to God as approved and unashamed workers, rightly handling the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). Believing this, they read. They read carefully and deeply. They string pieces together until they interpret the Bible by the Bible. They knit sections together to unfold the big picture of the Gospel.
Read your Bibles Christian women! Crave it as you do your food and drink. Take it in and let it saturate your veins until your blood is Bibline. Read it until your hearts pump Scripture, for “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart” (Matthew 15:18).
“Oh, that you and I might get into the very heart of the Word of God, and get that Word into ourselves!”2 That our words—to discouraged husbands, disobedient children, depressed neighbors and an ever darkening world—might be the true medicine of Scripture and not the sugary placebo of the day. So take it up and read!
[1] Mr. Spurgeon as a Literary Man, in The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon, Compiled from His Letters, Diaries, and Records by His Wife and Private Secretary, vol. 4, 1878-1892 (Curtis & Jennings, 1900), p. 268.
[2] Ibid.