Beaten Oil for Our LampsBrian Heasley - 6 Apr 2009

As Christians, we have a sort of ambassadorial role. We represent the Christ we love and serve.  As I was preparing for a talk I'm giving in Belfast, Northern Ireland this week it occurred to me that our role of representation grows stronger if we use our Bible in the private place of prayer.

I don't think we can separate conversation and the Word: I try to approach the Bible with prayer and prayer with the Bible.  My private prayer place is the greatest place to study the Bible.  Texts and verses I read that prove a little difficult to understand are illuminated through conversation with God... in prayer I can work myself into the text. As I stumble upon verses, I mull them over in prayer. I get into them and they get into me. I love this process!  Waiting on God often turns the darkness that we sometimes feel when reading the Bible into a great light.

When Jesus was with his disciples after his resurrection, "...he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures." (Luke 24: 45) It’s in prayer and close communion with Jesus that scripture comes alive.  Jesus somehow opens our minds! An old preacher at a conference was observed writing in his Bible, when some men looked over his shoulder he had written next to the verses he was looking at “More light Lord, More light Lord”  I've started to use this phrase a lot.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne was asked about his diligent approach to prayer and the Bible when preparing for a sermon his response was “Beaten oil – beaten oil for the lamps of the sanctuary”  This comes from Exodus 27: 20 "Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning"  or in the King James Version it reads "...that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always."

What we bring to others has to have been purified and refined in us. Do we beat what we have been reading? Do we squeeze it to get all the goodness out of it? This is what we are encouraged towards - to seek God, to exercise mind and Spirit in examining God's truth. Matthew 5 says We have been called to shine as lights or burning lamps. We will shine more greatly if we spend time alone with God and the Bible, getting more light and refining what we are reading.