The problem for the novice in reading the word of God is to be able to hear it.  We come to God with a great deal of baggage and our minds are cluttered and confused.  For some the word may appear so obvious that once read it is dismissed and forgotten.  For most it is a mystery that is too complex to unravel.  For the intellectual it is a challenge to the mind to solve the puzzle.  Most often people choose to take the insight of the expert rather than take the time to work it out for themselves.  The word becomes rules, dogma, and definition rather than God-breathed and inspired.  How can we learn to hear the word?  That is the question.

            To hear the word of God requires a lifestyle conducive to hearing the word.  Unless we free ourselves from attachments, people, places, things, idols like money, work, sports, sex, drugs and alcohol we are not in a suitable place to hear the word.  If we are negative, critical, judgmental, intolerant we will not be able to hear the word.  If we have an agenda, a specific, worldly idea of what we want to gain  from scripture we read it to serve our own carnal ends.  So to hear the word of God requires inner freedom and inner peace.  Wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are spiritual gifts that demand purity and holiness.  We can read the bible for all eternity and not glean its true meaning if our lives are bound by sin or unforgiveness or addiction or attachments.  So faith comes by hearing and that is what is necessary to hear: inner freedom and inner peace. 

            Reading the word can bring about the inner freedom and peace required but it takes a lifestyle of stilling the soul, contemplating the mysteries, entering into silence, communing with nature, repenting and turning away from sin to gain wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.  If we choose to take the insights of others as our means for hearing the word we will never enter the kingdom.  We must be led by the Spirit of God to enter the kingdom and to do that requires inner freedom and inner peace.  To hear the word requires a great deal more than just reading it, we must live it and most people refuse to take the journey.  They find it a great deal easier to conform to the pattern of the age than to forsake all and follow Christ.  But if you choose to change your lifestyle and enter into a spiritual life then faith will come by hearing and hearing by the word of God. 

amen