Have you ever seen the football coach yell at a player because the player goes the wrong way on an offensive play? Ten guys get it right, but that one player screws up because he doesn’t know the play. The coach will usually say something like this to the player, “Have you read the playbook?”
Several years ago when I first met the new head football coach of our town, he said something that kind of shocked me. He told me he did not give the playbook to his players. He had one playbook for himself and gave each coach a copy but the players would never get one. So I asked him, “Why don’t the players get one?” His answer was, “Because they won’t read it and they won’t study it like they should so why give them one?”
Jesus saw the same thing in his day with God’s playbook. Two thousand years ago when Jesus was walking the earth the Old Testament was available to read but it sounds like not many people read or studied it much. Even if they had read it they did not know the meaning of what they were reading. (Now remember that the New Testament was not around until Jesus died on the cross and the disciples started writing the New Testament.) There are several passages in the Bible where Jesus asked the people, “Have you not read……?” So let’s get into some of those scriptures where Jesus questioned the people. All of the following are quotes of Jesus.
Matthew 22:31 says, “Have you not read what was spoken to you by God……”
Mark 12:10 says, “Have you not read this scripture…….…..”
Matthew 12:3 says, “Have you not read what David did….…..”
Matthew 19:4 says, “Have you read that he who created……….”
Matthew 22:31 says, “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read…..”
Matthew 12:26 says, “And as for the dead being raised, have you not read….…”
Matthew 22:29 says, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor……..”
Sometime ago I wrote the story of my own conversion when I was convicted by the Holy Spirit to start reading the Bible for the first time. After the story was published, people started to approach me to tell me they really liked my story. At first I wasn’t sure how to respond to their comments, other than to say ‘Thank you.’ Saying ‘Thank you’ did not seem like the proper response. So I started to ask people, if they had ever read the Bible cover to cover?
My unscientific research of those who answered in the affirmative was less than ten percent of those who talked to me. Most folks told me they had read portions of the Bible but never read the whole thing cover to cover. Also many of them would follow that up with why they never had read the whole Bible. Does the coming up with an excuse mean that the Holy Spirit is working on them and trying to motivate them to read the whole Bible or playbook?
Go on-line and check some of this research that I have looked up but here are some of the shocking numbers on Bible reading in the United States of America from the year 2000:
Roughly 90% of Americans own a Bible with the average home having about 4 Bibles.
16% say they read the Bible daily.
21% say they read the Bible weekly.
12% say they read the Bible monthly.
41% say they rarely or never read the Bible. (We could add the other 10% of Americans that don’t own a Bible here also.)
So what kind of football team would you have if you had the same number of players reading and studying the playbook for football from the above numbers?
Now if Jesus was your football coach and you were getting ready to run a play from the playbook would Jesus be yelling at you after the play, “Have you never read the playbook?” or would Jesus be complementing you, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”