Taste

The word of the Lord endures forever.

And this is the word that was preached to you...

...Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk,

so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

1 Peter 1.25-2.3

Edmund Clowney (BST):

What quickens our desire for the life-giving word of God? Peter answers that we know the taste. Our culture makes the image clear; advertisers spend millions to promote the taste of a cola. Reading the Bible is addictive when we begin to get the taste. What we taste in Scripture is not simply the variety and power of the language. What we taste is the Lord. ...Those to whom Peter writes have found the Lord in the word of the gospel, or, better, he has found them by his living word.

Those who read the word of God, and surely those who teach it, must never forget why the word is given and whom it reveals. The word shows us the the Lord is good; his words are sweeter than honey to our taste because in them the Lord gives himself to us.

This made me think that this is a really important thing to pray for our children (as well as ourselves, of course): that as our children read their Bibles, it wouldn't be a chore, something their parents tell them they should do, but that they would "get the taste" and the Bible would be addictive to them as they taste the Lord in his Word.

And while we're on the subject, here's two related quotes I read recently:

"One of the biggest scams Stan has running today

is the lie that reading the Bible is a chore."

David Mathis (from Desiring God)

and

"A Bible that's falling apart

usually belongs to someone who isn't."

C.H.Spurgeon (from The Gospel Coalition)