Did you know your house has a smell? It’s a distinct smell that stands apart from the homes of your friends, your family of origin or your neighbors. Growing up, I had a friend whose clothes always smelled like black pepper. I have no idea why, but when you sat next to him, you could smell it. I don’t think his mom was putting pepper in the laundry, but something in their home carried that aroma. He had become “nose-blind” to it because it was what he was around all the time. It was “normal” or “ordinary” to him.

When I was in high school, a group of Russian students came to visit our school. And we noticed immediately that they al smelled of garlic. It was strong. We asked out school suer intendant about it and he said, “Do you know what you smell like to them?” and our response was “No, what?” He then told us that to the Russians, we smelled of sour milk. They ate a lot of garlic, so they smelled of it. We consumed a lot of dairy, so we smelled of it. But we had al become “nose-blind” because it is what was most familiar to us.

When we begin to study Scripture as a new Christian, it’s like a new smell to us. It’s exotic, it’s a bit mysterious, and we may even be a little confused about what we’re encountering. The writings of Moses “smell” different than the Psalms. The Psalms have a different “aroma” than the prophets. And the New Testament writings all contain their own unique but harmonious-with-the-whole “scent” that complete the full profile of scripture. It’s intriguing, it’s new. It holds our attention.

Sometimes we can get into a spiritually “nose-blind” condition when it comes to Scripture and our study of it. We get so familiar with the ups and downs of redemption history, the strange names feels a little less strange and it becomes more like walking into a restaurant where we’re regulars. We know what we like. We order it. We eat it. But it’s no longer intriguing, mysterious or exotic to us. It’s a habit, a pattern, but the flavors seems to have grown almost stale.

We don’t want to feel this way, and we know it’s not good to feel this way. But our old standard doesn’t capture us the way it used to. There’s a spiritual malaise that comes, and we need to address it. Stagnation isn’t good for anyone or anything. We need to be refreshed.

Aside from taking some time to confront these thoughts, and to probably engage in some prayer and fasting, to even do some specific confession before God of our spiritual apathy, we may just need to set a new direction for how we approach the Word, when we approach the Word and why we approach the Word. But we should always, and I mean always, be on guard when it comes to what influences we allow or seek out who might seek to influence how we understand the Word. There are many false teachers today, just as there were in the days of the early church. Be on guard.

Second Timothy 3 verse 16 and 17 say this:

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

For the first potential change in how you approach the Word of God, if you’re in need of a refresh, use Scripture itself to instruct you for what to look for within it’s pages. This verse in 2 Timothy gives us three possibilities for how we can approach God’s Word:

1. Teaching
   • Part of losing the “stale” feeling is admitting that we don’t know everything when it comes to God’s Word. Before you approach Him here, come humbly and ask Him as the toddler Samuel did “Speak, LORD, Your servant is listening.”
   • Come with purpose and humility. Come expecting. Come ready to listen, not to “talk over” the text. Be ready to be taught. You and I are not God. We don’t know it all. We, as disciples, need to be ready to learn from our Master, Jesus. Come desiring to be taught.
   • Come expecting to learn more than what you know. Come ready to dig deeper. This may mean you spend a week or more in just one passage or chapter. It may mean listening to sermons from multiple, reputable pastors as they teach these verses. It may mean reading commentaries or papers. You’re not in a rush to get through it all. Linger and learn. Come seeking to be taught.
2. Reproof & Correction
   • This one is probably the hardest, and simultaneously one of the most beneficial approaches that we can take as we approach Scripture. To come asking God to bring His correction into our life can feel almost dangerous. But we must remember Hebrews 12:6 says “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” If we come seeking God’s correction, we’re not asking for a punishment. Jesus already received the punishment for our sin. We’re asking for conviction from God, for Him to expose those dark corners of our heart.
   • We’re asking Him to help us see the things about ourselves that we don’t see, to “get a whiff” of the sin we have gone “nose-blind” to in our lives. Conviction is our friend that comes to rescue us. Repentance is the pathway that leads away from death.
   • Reading scripture with God’s loving correction in mind may put a whole new motivation in your heart for meeting Him in His Word. It’s all for the sake of pursuing holiness, and for seeing God glorified in the work of regeneration in your life. If Jesus died to save us from our sin, and He did, then we should take time to let Him guide us intentionally away from it.
3. Training in Righteousness
   • The training in righteousness that Paul is talking about here is meant to equip us for the good works that God has in store for us to do. In Ephesians 2:10, we find this: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” God has good works, that glorify Him, prepared for you and I to accomplish.
   • Now, in our flesh, we don’t naturally know what those good works are. We have to be saved to do them, and we are daily learning more about God, so we’re also learning what it is He wants to accomplish in us. I can’t tell you, after nearly 30 years in ministry, how many people have said something along the line of “I know God has big plans for me!” and in the way they talk, they’re thinking about a platform, a work of influence in the lives of their community, their region or even the world.
   • But in reality, God doesn’t have a regional or global platform in mind for the number of people that claim they think God told them they would. Christianity isn’t about big platforms. Following Jesus is about humble service, evangelism, and a faithfulness that echoes a trust in God for the daily, small things of life. We don’t get to jump the line of stewardship simply because we think we heard God say something to us.
   • Training in righteousness equips us to serve others like Jesus did, like His disciples did, and like you and I are supposed to do today. God prepared things for us to do beforehand, and so reading to be equipped must be part of how we approach the Word, too.

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One chapter before the verse we used to examine how God’s Word helps us examine ourselves and our life in Him, we find Paul saying this, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” (2 Tim. 2:15) As you go through your week, ask God to help you be teachable, to be ready for repentance and to equip you for the works He has prepared for you. Consider His Word the way His Word tells us to consider it, and I can guess that your outlook on it becomes far less stale, and far more energized.

Thoughts for the road:

1. What areas of your life could use some teaching from Jesus?
2. Do you have accountability to help you face repentance with a plan in place?
3. What has God been doing in you today that He equipped you to accomplish through the trials you’ve faced in previous days?