I wanted to title this post something like Does a stressed-out, multitasking, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring mother of 14 have to read the Bible for all its worth (because I didn’t feel sufficiently inadequate as it was), but it seemed a little long.

Besides, speaking for us dads, I get really psyched up when I think about actually having an hour of quiet, uninterrupted time to do anything. I get really deflated when I start to think my next window like that will be a sign of the apocalypse.

Suffice it to say that time doesn’t come in abundant supply for most of us.

This is a real problem if you’re taking seriously the material we’re dealing with in our class on How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. I mean, if you go all-out for this stuff, you’re talking about taking every word you read, tracing it back to the Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic, comparing its usage in all the different places it occurs in Scripture, asking the standard “who-what-where-when-why-and-how” questions (and inventing some new ones), assessing the historical and literary context of the usage of that word, consulting numerous English translations for varying interpretations of that word, and repeating that for all the words you encounter in your quiet time… right?

(Sorry, was that not helpful?)

Actually, I bring good news. The key is that last part of my little rant there: “…in your quiet time.”

The point of our class on “How to Read the Bible…” is not to create a heroic standard by which your daily Bible reading should be measured. We’re talking about rigorous study in our class. As a practical matter, if you were to apply that technique to, say, your daily Bible reading plan, there’s no way it would be a “read the Bible in a year” plan. It would be a “read the Bible in a lifetime” plan.

So what good is this rigorous study business?

Let me offer a couple of answers.

First, there will be times when you want to take up this level of rigorous study as a result of your regular Bible reading. Certain passages will raise questions that provoke your interest, and then you intentionally make time to engage this kind of rigorous study.

Second, someone may ask you one of those Deep Questions™ that requires this kind of study to get answers. (This is especially true if you have young children, as in, “Dad, if Jesus is God, does that mean he was praying to himself?”)

Third, I hope it will be your desire to engage in a deep study of the truth of Scripture whenever you can. When free time offers its services unexpectedly (and let’s face it, if you expected to have free time, you’d end up scheduling something to fill it), you’ve got to have these tools and skills at the ready in order to satisfy that desire for deeper understanding.

So be encouraged: your daily Bible reading need not turn into a Ph.D. curriculum in order to make good use of the material in the How to Read the Bible… class. And please, please don’t get discouraged or think that reading the Bible isn’t worth it just because you can’t spend half the day on it. There is real value in just reading the Bible devotionally for comprehension, reflection, and to inspire worship — but don’t let yourself dismiss the reality that there are treasures to be mined beneath the surface, and it is within your ability to do so.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take care of the aftermath of a child who didn’t quite make it to the potty, take out the trash, start the dishwasher, and go to bed so I can get up at 0500 and have my quiet time — and we’ll see what happens.