Had I ever become a seminary professor, I would have made all my students read For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself! by Sǿren Kierkegaard.
Either book is a good place to begin for anyone who is unfamiliar with my favorite “melancholy Dane” and wants to start reading Kierkegaard on their own.
Both books, published in 1851, only 4 years before his death at age 42, are a clarion call to genuine Christian living. Kierkegaard particularly focuses on the centrality of Scripture, not simply as a book to be read or studied, nor as a source for Sunday sermons, but as a compelling Word from God that must be obeyed.
The only sufficient goal of all Bible-reading is personal transformation, and transformation only happens for those who surrender to God’s instructions by DOING what scripture says. Reading without response is like a single person pretending to be married while eating alone every night.
Here is Kierkegaard’s advice (from For Self-Examination) for anyone whose Bible-reading has stalled because of its many difficult, hard to understand passages:
“…perhaps you say, ‘there are so many obscure passages in the Bible, whole books that are practically riddles.’ To that I would answer: Before I have anything to do with this objection, it must be made by someone whose life manifests that he/she has scrupulously complied with all the passages that are easy to understand; is this the case with you?…
“In other words, when you are reading God’s Word, it is not the obscure passages that bind you but what you understand, and with that you are to comply at once. If you understood only one single passage in all of Holy Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all, but you do not first have to sit down and ponder the obscure passages. God’s Word is given in order that you shall act according to it, not that you shall practice interpreting obscure passages. If you do not read God’s Word in such a way that you consider that the least little bit you do understand instantly binds you to do accordingly, then you are reading God’s Word.”
