Welcome to today's devotional reading from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Arthur Jackson and I titled today's encouragement, Studying the Scriptures.

J. I. Packer and his classic work Knowing, spoke of four well-known believers in Christ,

whom he called beavers for the Bible. Not all were trained scholars, but each one exercised

great care to know God by gnawing into the scripture, like a beaver digs in and gnaws away at a tree.

Packer further noted that knowing God through Bible study is not just for scholars.

A simple Bible reader and sermon hearer who is full of the Holy Spirit

will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than a more

learned scholar who is content with being theologically correct. Unfortunately, not all who

studied the Bible do so with humble hearts with the goal of getting to know the Savior better

and becoming more like him.

In Jesus' day, there were those who read the Old Testament scriptures, yet they missed the very

one they spoke of, saying in John chapter 5, you study the scriptures diligently because you think

that in them you have eternal life.

These are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Do you sometimes find yourself stumped as you read the Bible?

Or have you given up studying the scriptures all together?

Bible beavers are more than Bible readers. They prayerfully and carefully gnaw away at

Scripture in ways that open their eyes and hearts to see and love Jesus, the one revealed in it.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from John chapter 5,

verses 39 to 47.

You study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.

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