At our Ladies Retreat this year we are going to be learning about our Bible. What's in it? What do we do with it? How do we get something out of it or understand it? So we asked Sarah Schrott to share some of her thoughts about how she looks at her Bible now and how that has changed over the years.
Growing up in church every Sunday, youth group on Wednesdays, Christian school every day of my life I was immersed in the Bible whether I wanted to be or not. (Im pretty sure the Bible was was seeping through the walls of my mother’s womb while i was in-utero.) Much of my life the Bible was more of a textbook. The incentive to read it and memorize it in church was a sweet treat, memorization patches/pins for your Awana vest, or just simply the competitive nature to see who could memorize the most by the end of the month. In school the incentive to read and learn my Bible was the glory of getting an A in Bible class. I didn’t know throughout my K-12 days submerged in Christian School that the Bible was more than a means to get a good grade or an affirming accolade, even though I had heard otherwise.
When I was 19 I became a Christian. Hard to believe that after my 9 months + 18 years of being saturated in the Bible that I wasn’t actually a Christian. For the first time I began to understand the Bible outside of being a textbook. The Bible became a means to KNOW GOD rather than an incentive for any other silly secondary reason. I was reading the Bible with groups of people, listening to podcasts, and being taught from the Bible at Bible studies. I didn’t understand why I had so many questions after all of my years in church and school. Luckily I had the gift of being taught by a campus minister who answered all my questions about the Bible with the Bible. He taught me that Christians are meant to have questions and seek answers! Questions are GREAT! That’s what makes the beauty of our relationship with the Lord so wonderful. I believe to be loved to is to be known and to be known is to be loved. In order to get to know God: what he’s like, what he delights in, what makes him smile, what makes him sad, what frustrates him, what angers him ect. we must not be afraid to ask questions. Asking question enables our hearts to find answers about who God is! The greatest incentive of all in reading straight from God’s word is being able to know God’s heart and character. ~ Sarah Shcrott
