When devotional materials become a crutch …

Let’s immediately clarify something about the title of this blog post — I do not think using devotional materials for personal Bible study is bad.

Not at all!

There are a myriad of Bible devotional materials for Christians to choose from to use in their study of the Bible. Some of them really are fantastic materials, with deeply inspiring, insightful, and challenging content.

BUT, it is possible that we allow devotional materials to become a crutch to studying the Bible for ourselves. That can happen when …

… Our morning “quiet time” is always directed by the use of a devotional …

… Our Sunday school classes are always directed by devotional materials or curriculum …

… Our home groups are always directed by the use of devotional materials …

… Our Sunday evening services are always directed by use of devotional materials …

… Our retreats are always directed by devotional materials …

… Other meetings with Christians that include Bible study are always directed by devotional materials …

… and any (EVERY!) time we take to study the Bible, it is always directed by the use of devotional materials.

The problem with using devotional materials for every single time we study the Bible is that we don’t really study the Bible, what we’re doing is reading and pondering the result of someone else studying the Bible and their relaying to us what they learned. When what we believe about what the Bible says is always based on the study someone else has done, we have turned our devotional materials into a crutch that keeps us from having to do our own real work of studying the Bible for ourselves (and gaining the greater benefit of doing so!).

When devotional materials become a crutch, we remain unequipped or, at best, ill-equipped in God’s Word. It’s kind of like the story Peter Kennedy tells about Roy Robertson, a sailor who was at Pearl Harbor in 1941 …

My ship, the West Virginia, docked at Pearl Harbor on the evening of December 6, 1941. A couple of the fellows and I left the ship that night and attended a Bible study. About fifteen sailors sat in a circle on the floor. The leader asked us to each recite our favorite Scripture verse. In turn each sailor shared a verse and briefly commented on it.

I sat there in terror. I couldn’t recall a single verse. I grew up in a Christian home, went to church three times a week, but … I couldn’t recall a single verse. Finally, I remembered one verse – John 3:16. I silently rehearsed it in my mind. The spotlight of attention grew closer as each sailor took his turn. It was up to the fellow next to me. He recited John 3:16. He took my verse! As he commented on it I sat there in stunned humiliation. In a few moments everyone would know that I could not recall from memory even a single verse. Later that night I went to bed thinking, “Robertson, you’re a fake.”

At 7:55 the next morning I was awakened by the ship alarm ordering us to battle stations. 360 planes of the Japanese Imperial Fleet were attacking our ship and the other military installations. My crew and I raced to our machine gun emplacement, but all we had was practice ammunition. So for the first fifteen minutes of the two-hour battle, we only fired blanks hoping to scare the Japanese airplanes.

As I stood there firing fake ammunition I thought, “Robertson, this is how your whole life has been – firing blanks for Christ.” I made up my mind as Japanese bullets slammed into our ship, “If I escape with my life, I will get serious about following Jesus.”

Roy Robertson did get serious. He became the first missionary of “The Navigators” and did a lot of work with Billy Graham as well.

At some point, our learning about God has to become about us opening our Bibles and STUDYING it for ourselves. We may need to use a variety of study tools, from Bible dictionaries to lexicons to commentaries to other resources, but at some point we have to study for ourselves the content of the Bible rather than ALWAYS relying on someone else sharing the outcome of THEIR study of the Bible.

It can be beneficial, even a blessing, to have quality devotional materials to use in our study of the Bible, but it can be detrimental to our own spiritual formation to allow such materials to become a crutch.

Are you making the time and commitment to do the work of studying the Bible for yourself? Or are you reliant on devotionals?

Scotty