God Speaking to Us in His Word

Excerpt from Why do you emphasize Bible reading and prayer so much? with John Piper

Why do you emphasize Bible reading and prayer so much?

I don't think there is anything more basic to knowing the supremacy of Christ, loving him, and obeying him—and being the church for each other and for the sake of the world—than to hear God speak to us in his word and then to speak back to him with the praises and the longings of our hearts.

The reason for that is because it is so plain that today God reveals himself to us by the word. The living Christ in his bodily form is not here. He has ascended and taken his place at the right hand of God. Neither are his inspired prophets and apostles here. God has ordained for himself to be known primarily by the word that was recorded from those prophets and apostles—especially those who knew the Lord himself in his physical form—and preserved in a book.

Now, through the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we are enabled to read that book with illumination and let our hearts cry back to him what we see in it. It becomes a kind of rhythm.

It is absolutely crucial for me that my prayer be saturated with the word and that my Bible reading be saturated with prayer, because this is how we commune with God. And this communion of hearing and speaking is what leads to our transformation, which is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.