Joel M Bradshaw

103How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!–Psalm 119

I had a situation this week that illustrated the perspective of this verse. I was having a conversation with a woman who claimed to know a lot about God. Yet, her side of the conversation was unfocused and argumentative towards the Bible. She would make comments about God and about Scripture and would ask me questions that started with “You don’t really believe that…?”.

As we prepared to have our third conversation, a thought hit me. This person had a lot of experience talking about how she feels about God, but not a lot of actual interaction with the Bible. So on a hunch, I printed off a packet I had developed awhile back. It explains the Gospel message thematically, but using the actual Scripture to do so. The holiness and justice of God…the reality of our sin…the effects of our sin…the hopelessness on our own to do anything about our sin…the person and work of Jesus…what the death and resurrection of Jesus accomplished.

The only issue was the packet was nine stapled pages. It was a lot of information for an hour-long conversation. I even told her about my hunch. I said that even though this might be a lot of Scripture to take in, that this was what she actually is needing and might just be what she wants. I even said that though she has a lot of opinions about the Bible, that she might just be Biblically ‘illiterate’ concerning its message. And to her credit, she actually agreed with me. All of a sudden, the stack of stapled papers weren’t so daunting.

Again, little commentary (I added some) and all verses. My friend read passage after passage. At first, she was unwilling to focus and wanting to argue, but then something changed. We kept moving forward and she began to feel convicted by what the Bible passages were saying. She commented about her own sinfulness and about her lack of hope. She began to appreciate what the Bible said about the saving work of Jesus. I found her underlining and marking the pages as we went.

By the end of our time, she said to me with pride, “You know I’m going to keep reading this packet when I get home.” I was kind of counting on it. I got to watch God use His Word to begin to shepherd a person craving rest and peace. I got to watch a person who once treated the Bible with skepticism find sweetness and hope.

My friend got to intentionally ‘taste’ God’s Word and found the message to be sweet. I love biblical counseling. God uses the Bible to do all the work. I just keep the conversation going!–JMB