What Spiritual Disciplines Are Most Important?

00:00:00.000 | Welcome back. We're joined again by Dr. Don Whitney, professor of biblical spirituality

00:00:10.560 | and associate dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

00:00:15.480 | in Louisville. Don is known for his classic book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian

00:00:20.320 | Life, and he is the author of a new book from Crossway. It's titled, Praying the Bible.

00:00:26.420 | We're talking about the spiritual disciplines, and Don, I know you hear this question all

00:00:29.920 | the time because it's an important one. In the Christian life, what are the two most

00:00:35.700 | important personal spiritual disciplines that we can engage in? What is your answer when

00:00:41.480 | it comes to priority?

00:00:43.340 | The answer to that is very clear. The two most important personal spiritual disciplines

00:00:49.000 | are the intake of the word of God and prayer, and in that order. For it's much more important

00:00:54.840 | for us to hear from God through his word than for God to hear from us in prayer. So it is

00:01:01.440 | essential that those two have priority. Furthermore, all the other biblical spiritual disciplines

00:01:07.280 | grow out of those. Particularly, they grow out of the word of God. So something like

00:01:12.080 | fasting or whatever, we find that in the word of God. It's shaped by the word of God. Our

00:01:18.600 | instruction for doing that is found in the word of God.

00:01:22.400 | Now what I've discovered though is that people want to say, "You know, I go to a good Bible

00:01:27.400 | believing church, and every time I come to church it seems in one way or another I hear

00:01:31.160 | about intake of the Bible and prayer. Give me something else. Give me something more

00:01:35.920 | exotic. Talk about some of the more exotic spiritual disciplines like fasting or solitude

00:01:40.880 | or keeping a journal, something like that."

00:01:43.120 | If someone is not founded, grounded well in the word of God and prayer, forget fasting.

00:01:49.660 | Forget journaling. The foundation is the word of God and prayer. And I say that as a note

00:01:55.280 | to pastors and teachers, people who are teaching on the spiritual disciplines, if your teaching

00:02:00.240 | on the spiritual disciplines does not result in people at the very least becoming more

00:02:04.240 | consistent in the word and in prayer, forget all the other ones. People are more interested

00:02:09.360 | in them perhaps because they've heard less about them, and we do want to teach what the

00:02:14.560 | Bible teaches about them, and they're in the scripture, and we want to teach them. But

00:02:18.760 | don't let an interest in the more obscure disciplines keep people from being inconsistent

00:02:25.560 | in terms of the word of God and prayer.

00:02:27.920 | Now with those two most important personal spiritual disciplines, I've found there's

00:02:32.040 | an almost universal problem. With the intake of the word of God, it looks like this. People,

00:02:37.280 | even our most devoted daily Bible readers, will read a chapter, read three chapters,

00:02:41.920 | however much it is. Once they're finished, they close their Bible. And most days, if

00:02:45.840 | pressed, as soon as they close their Bible, they would have to admit, "I don't remember

00:02:49.640 | a thing I've read." In fact, many days, I can't even tell you where I've read. I believe

00:02:55.080 | the simple, permanent, biblical solution to that is to meditate on scripture. Not merely

00:03:01.060 | to read, but meditate. People say, "You know, I just can't remember what I read, though."

00:03:04.960 | But if it takes a person, let's say, two seconds to read verse one of a chapter, then two seconds

00:03:09.840 | to read verse two, then two seconds to read verse three, you can have a thousand two-second

00:03:14.620 | encounters with the word of God and not remember a thing you've read. Because what do you ever

00:03:18.920 | remember that you look at for two seconds? Occasionally something, but not very often.

00:03:24.000 | So the problem is not your memory, it's not your IQ, it's not your education, it's your

00:03:28.120 | method. So I'd encourage people who say, who are listening to this and say, "But you don't

00:03:32.040 | get it. I only have a very few minutes every day and I'm doing the best I can. Now you're

00:03:35.640 | telling me to add to that. I don't have time to add to that." Okay, let's say you only

00:03:39.760 | have 10 minutes for the word of God. Don't read for 10 minutes. Read for five minutes.

00:03:45.080 | Meditate for five minutes. Far better to read less, if necessary, and remember something

00:03:50.300 | than to read more and remember nothing. And with prayer, I found that the almost universal

00:03:55.400 | problem is this. People tend to say the same old things about the same old things in prayer.

00:04:01.260 | And sooner or later, that's boring. When prayer is boring, you don't feel like praying. When

00:04:05.600 | you don't feel like praying, it's hard to make yourself pray. It's just duty prayer.

00:04:09.640 | It's just obligatory prayer. It's joyless, it's bloodless, it's heartless. Now to pray

00:04:13.760 | about the same old things is normal. Our lives tend to consist of the same old things from

00:04:18.700 | one day to the next. Our lives don't change dramatically from one day to the next very

00:04:22.880 | often. Simple, permanent, biblical solution to that almost universal problem. When you

00:04:29.280 | pray, pray through a passage of scripture, particularly a song. You do that, you'll pray

00:04:34.520 | about the same old things every day, but you will never again say the same old things about

00:04:39.540 | the same old things. You won't run out of anything to say. You don't need any other

00:04:43.960 | notes. You don't need anything else. Just open your Bible, talk to God about what comes

00:04:48.320 | to mind from the word of God, and you'll never again say the same old things.

00:04:51.960 | That's a brilliant way to read and process the Bible and pray at the same time. And this

00:04:58.880 | episode is also a great lead in to mention your newest book once again from Crossway.

00:05:03.200 | It's simply titled "Praying the Bible," and you can find more on how to do this very thing

00:05:08.320 | as a spiritual discipline in your daily life in Dr. Whitney's new book. Thank you, Dr.

00:05:12.440 | Whitney, for your time. So what spiritual discipline is the hardest? I'll ask tomorrow.

00:05:17.960 | Thanks for listening to the podcast. For everything you need and to send us your questions and

00:05:22.580 | download our apps, meet up with us online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. I'm your

00:05:29.280 | host Tony Reinke. I'll see you tomorrow.

00:05:30.840 | [End of Audio]

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What Spiritual Disciplines Are Most Important?

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