PDJ on the ‘Quiet Time’

Photo by Aaron Owens on Unsplash

CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - 17 July 2025

Friends in Christ, the most helpful article I ever read on personal Bible reading and prayer was written by Phillip Jensen.

This was more than 30 years ago when he was a university chaplain – long before he became Dean of this Cathedral. At that stage I had never even heard of him. But his article helped me so much I kept it all these years. Today I share an extract with you...

The "quiet time" is a quaint evangelical expression to describe private Bible reading and prayer. The back-bone of evangelical piety lies in regular times alone with God. Most Christians perceive the need to read their Bible and pray but feel a sense of inadequacy and failure, if not guilt, over their poor performance. To assist people to free themselves from guilt while undertaking meaningful Bible reading and consistent prayer is an enormously valuable ministry. 

Motivation 
The first key to having a quiet time is motivation. Without the desire to spend time with God in Bible reading and prayer any system will fail. It will fail in us either not spending time with God or in doing so legalistically. 

We relate to God through His Word. God has spoken and calls upon us to listen, understand, tremble and obey His Word. His Word is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It has come through the prophets and most clearly in the person of His Son, who is His Word. If we know God through Jesus and if we wish to grow in our knowledge of God then we are to consistently and continually turn our minds to a prayerful understanding of what God has said. 

 […] Likewise our prayer is to be without ceasing. It is to dominate our life at every aspect and facet of existence. It is this relationship based upon the Gospel that is the motivation for quiet time. 

A Sincere Habit 
Two paradoxical elements of [an] established routine of prayer and Bible reading are those of habit and sincerity.

Sincerity is the name of the game. We are to read the Bible to hear and understand and obey God. We are not to read the Bible so as to impress ourselves or others or to try and impress God. Ours must not be the form or ritual of daily observance, rather we must aim for sincerity.

However, for a programme of daily routine to be established it requires us to move into a habit. Regular exercise or teeth cleaning gains benefit from the cumulative effect of daily habit. Likewise, Bible reading and prayer will be of benefit to us over time. Furthermore, we are more likely to read and pray on any single day if we are in the habit of reading and praying at this time and place on every day.

It is of course a very great difficulty to develop a sincere habit! We tend to oscillate between following the habit without any meaning or sincerely never reading the Scriptures. But our aim must be to habitually turn to God in prayerful reading of His Word. 

I cannot underline enough how helpful it is both to examine your motivation and sincerity: do you really want to get to know God and his ways and will better? And then to work on helpful habits. 

Email the office if you'd like a copy of Phillip's full article (understanding there are one or two dated references within it).

Warmly in Christ,

Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney