Hi, this is David Platt. I want to thank you for praying God’s word with us through this podcast. And I want to let you know that this next series of Pray the Word is going to be a little different from what you may be used to as far as just taking a book of the Bible and going chapter by chapter successively, one after the other.
So I want to give you a little context about what this next ten months or so of Pray the Word is going to look like. The church that I have the privilege of pastoring, McLean Bible Church in greater Washington DC, is going to be reading and studying through the story of scripture together this year. So we’re going to start in Genesis 1 and we’re going to walk through a Bible reading plan that’s six days a week where we will cover the story of scripture chronologically. So we’ll go from Genesis to Revelation, but along the way we will be looking at different parts of the Bible as they appear in time to try to see how the story of scripture fits together.
Overview of the Bible reading plan:
The Bible reading plan has about one or two chapters a day. So for Pray the Word, what I’m going to do is take one verse from that day’s reading and let it lead us to pray accordingly. And then the next day, do the same. And the next day. So what that means is, we won’t hit every chapter in the Bible. So over the course of this Bible reading plan, we won’t read every single chapter in scripture. We will be hitting select texts and they will be in chronological order. So not necessarily in the order in which we see them in our Bible, for example, in the table of contents.
But I hope it’ll be helpful for you as you track along. You’re obviously welcome to join in the Bible reading plan that we’re walking through if you’d like. I certainly don’t want to pull you away from anything you and your local church are doing. But if you don’t have a Bible reading plan, you can download this one. And you can journey with us through the story of scripture. So six days week, Pray the Word will be on a different part of this story of scripture as we walk through it together.
And then on the seventh day, what I’ll do is take a Proverb and we’ll just kind of work successively through different Proverbs for that seventh day over the course of this ten months. So my hope is, after walking through this kind of series in Pray the Word over ten months, we will have literally prayed through the story of scripture in a way that I hope will help serve the church I pastor, for those of you who are a part of McLean Bible Church, as we walk through this story of scripture. Or for those who want to join in. And then, even if you’re not reading through this Bible reading plan together, I hope this will be an encouragement for you to pray through the story of scripture.
So that’s the plan over the next ten months or so of Pray the Word. Six days a week we’ll be walking through the story of scripture. And the seventh day will be letting a Proverb drive us to prayer. And I look forward to seeing what God does in and through our hearts as we pray through His story of redemption from cover to cover in the Bible.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
– Proverbs 1:7
Proverbs 1:7 is a pretty simple truth. It’s reflected all throughout the book of Proverbs that the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. Basically, God-fearing worship leads to God-given wisdom.
Think about your life, I think about my life, we all need wisdom. We all need wisdom, that’s a part of Proverbs 1:7 is saying, the last part, “Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” It is foolish to not want wisdom. To not ask for wisdom, to not seek wisdom.
Proverbs 1:7 Reminds Us Worship Leads To Wisdom
In every facet of our lives, every facet of my life, in my marriage, in my family, my parenting, in my work, in my day-to-day decisions, in everything I think, everything I do, I need wisdom. I don’t want to be foolish. And I trust the same is true for you.
So how? How do we get wisdom in all these facets of our lives? How do we live wisely in ways that are good for us, in ways that are good for others? In ways that are ultimately glorifying to God, how do we live wisely? It starts with worship. Wisdom starts with fixing our eyes, our hearts, our minds on God. In awe of him.
We will only see things in the world wisely when we seek God worshipfully. This is the key in our lives to start with an eye and heart and mind fixed upon God in worship, in prayer, in his word. And as we do this, as we seek him, as we worship him, as we fear him, wisdom flows.
This Verse Prays For The Chance To See God
God, we bow our hearts before you now. We pray that you would give us a fresh glimpse of your greatness, of your glory, your goodness, your grace, your love, your mercy, your justice. All your attributes, oh God. Help us to see you, God, we worship you. There is no one like you, there is no one holy like you. There is no one great like you. No one who is all-powerful like you. To you belong all wealth and might and majesty and glory and honor and power and praise forever and ever and ever. We worship you.
Proverbs 1:7 Prays We Center Our Lives Around Worship
We pray that you would totally center our lives around the worship of you. Make us a God-centered people. Make me a God-centered man, not a self-centered man, a God-centered man. And God, I pray that for everybody who is listening right now. Make us, please make us centered upon you. And we trust that when we do, when we fear you, when we worship you, and when we are loving and trusting and seeking you, you will provide us all the wisdom we need.
You will help us to see rightly and to act wisely. God, may it be so. I pray for wisdom in my own life, in every facet of my life. I pray for wisdom in the lives of those who are listening to this right now. And we pray that this wisdom would flow from a God-centered, God-glorifying, God-saturated heart that fears you.
In Jesus’ name, we pray, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
