on importance of Bible study and prayer — James Montgomery Boice

"Two things go together in the Christian life: prayer, in which we talk to God, and Bible study, in which God talks to us. Prayer is of great importance. But somebody once said, I think wisely, that when we’re talking to God and God is talking to us, we had better let God do most of the talking. In other words, we should spend most of our time in Bible study…

We as Christians sometimes say, “We want God to bless our church” or “We want God to bless our family” (or our Bible study or nation or whatever it might be). But if we are serious, we must learn that the way God blesses is usually through a study of the Bible—as people come to know what God has written, respond to it, believe it, and proclaim it to other people in the world. If you find yourself in what seems to be a time of waiting or inactivity, redeem the time, as these disciples did. Become a better student—a more knowledgeable student—of the Word of God…

A Spirit-filled church always studies the apostolic teaching. It is a learning church that grounds its experiences in and tests those experiences by the Word of God…

Let’s put that in terms easy to understand: A Spirit-filled church is always going to be a Bible-studying church. Those two things go together… Wherever the church has been greatly blessed, where the Spirit of God has come upon God’s people and the gospel has gone forth in great power and people have responded to it, these have always been ages in which the Bible has been studied carefully. Why? It is because the closer men and women come to God the closer they want to get to where he speaks to their hearts, and that is in the Bible.

What is true of the church is true for individuals also. If you are Spirit-filled, then you will be drawn to this Book. If you are not drawn to this Book, if you do not really want to study it, if you say, “Well, you know, I look at the Bible from time to time, but it seems rather boring to me: it never really does much for me,” you ought to question whether you are really born again. Or if you are born again, you at least ought to question whether you are filled by the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit, whose chief task is to bear witness to Jesus Christ, inevitably draws the people of God to Jesus through the Scriptures.

This means, among other things, that evangelical, Spirit-filled, Bible-oriented churches should offer many ways for people to get to know the Bible. It must be done through the preaching. In fact, that is the preacher’s chief task: to expound the Word of God. He is to study it and then teach it to others. It may be done through Bible classes and home Bible studies. We are going to see that the early Christians worshiped in their homes. So I am sure they studied the Bible in their homes. If we had been there, we would have said, “They’re having home Bible studies.”

— James Montgomery Boice, Acts: An expositional commentary (57–58).