Mining the Bible to find ourselves

Theophilus at notes from the front lines discusses the all-too-human tendency to approach the Bible as something we dig through to find something for ourselves. Theo's insights came during a presentation by a missionary in a seminary class:

One of the missionaries was making the point that many believers, particularly ones in America, view Scripture as if it were primarily about them, and not God. And that's the way we read the Bible, the way we used to open our high school yearbooks for the first time when we got them. What did we do? We turned to our picture to see how we turned out. That's how we read the Bible these days, to see what I can get out of it for myself, to improve my self-esteem, to see what strategies I can employ to "enlarge my territory." But time after time after time throughout Scripture, we see God working and acting to bring Himself glory. Isn't that what we should be doing as Christians, too?

Yes it is.