Don’t You Read Your Bible?

The late Dr. John G. Mitchell, a well known and much loved pastor and Bible teacher in the Pacific Northwest, would tease his students when they couldn’t answer a biblical question during his lectures.

He’d lean over his lectern, smile, and ask, “Don’t you read your Bible?”

Over the past eighteen years that question has echoed in my mind as I’ve exhorted men and their churches again and again to meet the pressing needs of their widowed and single parents.

“Don’t you read your Bible?” I thought when a pastor told me he had no idea how frequently the Bible mentioned widows and orphans.

“Don’t you read your Bible?” I think every time I pick up a book on men’s ministry and search through it to see if it mentions anything about doing good works for the widowed and single parents, only to find silence on the subject.

“Don’t you read your Bible?” I wondered when someone told a group of men that ministry to their widowed and single parents was just a “niche” ministry.

“Don’t you read your Bible?” I want to shout when people discuss racial reconciliation and fail to see how the early church addressed this problem by caring for each other’s widows (Acts 6).

“Don’t you read your Bible?” I cringe when I see Christians warehousing their elderly parents and grandparents in nursing homes.

“Don’t you read your Bible?” I ask when churches fail to understand the importance of meeting the needs of their widowed and single parents and then wonder why the world is no longer looking to them for answers.

But maybe, however, the real question is, “Don’t you obey your Bible?”