Thoughts on John 6:60-71

Like Peter, I do not want to leave my Lord.

The world I see around me is dark, frightening, and powerful. In looking at myself, I have come to understand my own weakness--my helplessness to control anything around me. How, then, could I venture into that place without the protection of my Father's mighty hand?
The thought terrifies me.

The pleasures of this world are plentiful and persuasive in their promises. It would be easy to submit to their allure and let myself be drawn in until I hardly know myself. But I know from the stirrings of my soul that it will not be satisfied with such meager fare. I have tasted of a greater joy than the world can offer me. I will not leave the source of living water to drink at broken cisterns.

The Creator of the universe does not disappear simply because I turn away from him.
I am not guiltless. I am not shameless. I deserve eternal punishment.
To flee from the arms of my Savior is to expose myself for the judgment my sinful soul requires. Without my Redeemer, the knowledge of a holy God's existence is the most horrifying thing I can imagine.

Like a lost child come home, I do not want to leave this shelter my soul has found.
I am not afraid that I will. I know this:
Like steel melted onto steel, my Lord will never, ever let me go.

Approaching the Bible

The Bible comes from God; God doesn't come from the Bible.

Our knowledge of God is a different story. What we know about God, definitively and redemptively, comes from the Bible. And that is, the Bible that comes from God, who himself comes from nothing.

These are the foundational pieces to understanding the doctrine of revelation, and therefore, the doctrine of Scripture. God, utterly independent and essentially revelatory, has made himself known. This is stunning. And it helps to read the Bible with it in view.

D. A. Carson writes,

To approach the Bible correctly it is important to know something of the God who stands behind it. God is both transcendent (i.e., he is "above" space and time) and personal. He is the sovereign and all-powerful Creator to whom the entire universe owes its existence, yet he is the God who graciously condescends to interact with human beings whom he has himself formed in his own image.
Because we are locked in time and space, God meets us here; he is the personal God who interacts with other persons, persons he has made to glorify him and to enjoy him forever. . . .
The point to emphasize is that a genuinely Christian understanding of the Bible presupposes the God of the Bible, a God who makes himself known in a wide diversity of ways so that human beings may know the purpose for which they were made — to know and love and worship God, and so delight in that relationship that God is glorified while they receive the matchless benefit of becoming all that God wants them to be.

"Approaching the Bible," Collected Writings on Scripture, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 19–21.

From: desiringGod.org

How to Read the Bible

I was looking through the papers in the back of my Bible and found this. It's from a Vital Life seminar I went to a little while ago. (Parenthetical notes) are my own additions based on how the speaker elaborated.

Reading the Bible for Change

DON'T primarily leaf through the Bible to find something that fits your situation. DO develop a reading plan that allows you to get a well-rounded intake of God's Word.
(The Bible is not "life's handbook")

DON'T spend your entire life in Read the Bible in a Year plans. DO develop plans that allow you to read at various paces over time.

DON'T rely on your own personal insights in reading the Bible. DO take advantage of good commentaries and resources to help you understand passages in context of the redemptive storyline of the Bible.

DON'T read the Bible as if it is a magic book. DO read it confident that the Spirit can illuminate your understanding of it for application.

DON'T allow any decision or perspective to be unevaluated by Scripture. DO seek to develop a Biblical worldview that will help you discern God's voice and God's will in the confusion of life.
(The Biblical worldview of having God at the very center is really important, because there are a lot of decisions and perspectives we'll have to choose that are not referenced specifically in the Bible.)