Study or pray—that is the question. As biblical scholars where are we drawn to find kinship with God? For most believers, the answer is clear: pray regularly and sincerely. For those of us who invest ourselves into biblical and theological research, pouring over books being intellectually and spiritually mined for a closer understanding of God in some particular aspect of his character, his ways, and his book, the answer can get complicated. Our closest moments with God seem to come from deep ideas that blossom into an awakening of truth when we read something in a book or discover something from a rich study of a biblical text. Prayer can seem like something else sometimes, like shallow ritual in comparison. It is not surprising to us to hear Jewish rabbinic literature say that biblical study is worship. But does it have to seem so divided for us? Pray or study? Early, impactful, evangelical theologian B. B.Warfield considers this question and makes this extended comment found Selected Shorter Writings of B.B. Warfield (1:412):

"Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your book. ‘What!’ is the appropriate response, ‘than ten hours over your books, on your knees?’ Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God? If learning and devotion are as antagonistic as that, then the intellectual life is in itself accursed, and there can be no question of a religious life for a student, even of theology."

He concludes, "There can be no ‘either-or’ here—either a student or a man of God. You must be both." Although we sometimes pray and sometimes study, it seems the two should not be rigidly divided; each should bleed into to the other. The truths we discover in our study should inform and deepen our times of prayer, and our study should be nurtured by our devotion and prayer. Sometimes they might completely overlap as an insight leads us directly into a nearness to God that overwhelms us in worship and prayer or when prayer leads us into truths about God we have been studying. And, of course, all of this should inform our entire life and character as we go about our day. --Lord, bless us with being near to you in our study and our prayer.

William Baker: editor of the Stone-Campbell Journal