Welcome back. We're joined again by Dr. Don Whitney, professor of biblical spirituality and associate dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. Don is known for his classic book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, and he is the author of a new book from Crossway.

It's titled, Praying the Bible. We're talking about the spiritual disciplines, and Don, I know you hear this question all the time because it's an important one. In the Christian life, what are the two most important personal spiritual disciplines that we can engage in? What is your answer when it comes to priority?

The answer to that is very clear. The two most important personal spiritual disciplines are the intake of the word of God and prayer, and in that order. For it's much more important for us to hear from God through his word than for God to hear from us in prayer.

So it is essential that those two have priority. Furthermore, all the other biblical spiritual disciplines grow out of those. Particularly, they grow out of the word of God. So something like fasting or whatever, we find that in the word of God. It's shaped by the word of God. Our instruction for doing that is found in the word of God.

Now what I've discovered though is that people want to say, "You know, I go to a good Bible believing church, and every time I come to church it seems in one way or another I hear about intake of the Bible and prayer. Give me something else. Give me something more exotic.

Talk about some of the more exotic spiritual disciplines like fasting or solitude or keeping a journal, something like that." If someone is not founded, grounded well in the word of God and prayer, forget fasting. Forget journaling. The foundation is the word of God and prayer. And I say that as a note to pastors and teachers, people who are teaching on the spiritual disciplines, if your teaching on the spiritual disciplines does not result in people at the very least becoming more consistent in the word and in prayer, forget all the other ones.

People are more interested in them perhaps because they've heard less about them, and we do want to teach what the Bible teaches about them, and they're in the scripture, and we want to teach them. But don't let an interest in the more obscure disciplines keep people from being inconsistent in terms of the word of God and prayer.

Now with those two most important personal spiritual disciplines, I've found there's an almost universal problem. With the intake of the word of God, it looks like this. People, even our most devoted daily Bible readers, will read a chapter, read three chapters, however much it is. Once they're finished, they close their Bible.

And most days, if pressed, as soon as they close their Bible, they would have to admit, "I don't remember a thing I've read." In fact, many days, I can't even tell you where I've read. I believe the simple, permanent, biblical solution to that is to meditate on scripture. Not merely to read, but meditate.

People say, "You know, I just can't remember what I read, though." But if it takes a person, let's say, two seconds to read verse one of a chapter, then two seconds to read verse two, then two seconds to read verse three, you can have a thousand two-second encounters with the word of God and not remember a thing you've read.

Because what do you ever remember that you look at for two seconds? Occasionally something, but not very often. So the problem is not your memory, it's not your IQ, it's not your education, it's your method. So I'd encourage people who say, who are listening to this and say, "But you don't get it.

I only have a very few minutes every day and I'm doing the best I can. Now you're telling me to add to that. I don't have time to add to that." Okay, let's say you only have 10 minutes for the word of God. Don't read for 10 minutes. Read for five minutes.

Meditate for five minutes. Far better to read less, if necessary, and remember something than to read more and remember nothing. And with prayer, I found that the almost universal problem is this. People tend to say the same old things about the same old things in prayer. And sooner or later, that's boring.

When prayer is boring, you don't feel like praying. When you don't feel like praying, it's hard to make yourself pray. It's just duty prayer. It's just obligatory prayer. It's joyless, it's bloodless, it's heartless. Now to pray about the same old things is normal. Our lives tend to consist of the same old things from one day to the next.

Our lives don't change dramatically from one day to the next very often. Simple, permanent, biblical solution to that almost universal problem. When you pray, pray through a passage of scripture, particularly a song. You do that, you'll pray about the same old things every day, but you will never again say the same old things about the same old things.

You won't run out of anything to say. You don't need any other notes. You don't need anything else. Just open your Bible, talk to God about what comes to mind from the word of God, and you'll never again say the same old things. That's a brilliant way to read and process the Bible and pray at the same time.

And this episode is also a great lead in to mention your newest book once again from Crossway. It's simply titled "Praying the Bible," and you can find more on how to do this very thing as a spiritual discipline in your daily life in Dr. Whitney's new book. Thank you, Dr.

Whitney, for your time. So what spiritual discipline is the hardest? I'll ask tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the podcast. For everything you need and to send us your questions and download our apps, meet up with us online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. I'm your host Tony Reinke. I'll see you tomorrow. 1 Desiring God.org Page 1 of 2 1.

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