2 Timothy 2:15
Were You But Willing …
Remember the wise words of Richard Baxter to the people of Kidderminster:
“Were you but as willing to get the knowledge of God and heavenly things as you are to know how to work in your trade, you would have set yourself to it before this day, and you would have spared no cost or pains till you had got it. But you account seven years little enough to learn your trade and will not bestow one day in seven in diligent learning the matters of your salvation.’
Resource
- Rightly Dividing - J. R. Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 136. (to cut straight, i.e., A ploughman making a furrow or a road builder.)
Requirements of Beneficial Study
The most beneficial study of God’s Word requires diligence and perseverance, but the results are worth the effort. A.B. Simpson said, “God has hidden every precious thing in such a way that it is a reward to the diligent, a prize to the earnest, but a disappointment to the slothful soul. All nature is arrayed against the lounger and the idler. The nut is hidden in its thorny case; the pearl is buried beneath the ocean waves; the gold is imprisoned in the rocky bosom of the mountains; the gem is found only after you crush the rock which encloses it; the very soil gives its harvest as a reward to the laboring farmer. So truth and God must be earnestly sought.”