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On Reading the Bible · Scripture-ish

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hi, this is Ed Gallagher.
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SPEAKER_00: I am reading my essay on reading the Bible,
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SPEAKER_00: and it is part three of the series, Hearing the Word of God.
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SPEAKER_00: I start with this quote from the book of Joshua.
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SPEAKER_00: Only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according
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SPEAKER_00: to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded thee.
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SPEAKER_00: Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left,
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SPEAKER_00: That thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.
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SPEAKER_00: This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth,
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SPEAKER_00: but thou shalt meditate therein,
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SPEAKER_00: day and night,
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SPEAKER_00: that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.
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SPEAKER_00: For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
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SPEAKER_00: Have not I commanded thee?
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SPEAKER_00: Be strong and of a good courage.
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SPEAKER_00: Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.
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SPEAKER_00: For the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest.
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SPEAKER_00: Joshua 1, 7-9 Should Christians read the Bible?
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SPEAKER_00: Well, yes,
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SPEAKER_00: of course,
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SPEAKER_00: and they can hardly avoid it if they are pious and go to church and Bible class.
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SPEAKER_00: But I don't mean to ask about Christians reading the Bible in group settings,
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SPEAKER_00: public worship or Bible class or whatever.
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SPEAKER_00: Should individual Christians read the Bible for private devotion?
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SPEAKER_00: Yes and no, or actually no and yes and again no.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: We'll approach the question through the side door.
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SPEAKER_00: Should individual Christians pray?
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SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's an easy one.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: The Bible talks a great deal about people of faith praying.
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SPEAKER_00: Pray without ceasing, said the apostle.
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SPEAKER_00: Jesus gave much instruction on prayer.
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SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, there's an entire book, a long book, comprising 150 prayers.
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SPEAKER_00: Next question.
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SPEAKER_00: Should Christians go to church?
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SPEAKER_00: Let's reword that.
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SPEAKER_00: Should Christians routinely gather with the saints to worship God?
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SPEAKER_00: Yes, another easy question.
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SPEAKER_00: The Bible has a great deal to say about corporate worship in the Old
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SPEAKER_00: and New Testament,
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SPEAKER_00: or at least gathering and doing the activities we tend to associate
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SPEAKER_00: with worship—singing,
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SPEAKER_00: praying,
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SPEAKER_00: exploring Scripture— Let me just remind you about the verse in Hebrews that says,
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SPEAKER_00: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
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SPEAKER_00: What about Bible reading?
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SPEAKER_00: Does the Bible tell people to read the Bible?
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SPEAKER_00: We find instructions to listen to or to hear the word of God or the message of the gospel.
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SPEAKER_00: The prophets often call on the ancient Israelites and Judeans to pay attention, to listen.
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SPEAKER_00: But they never tell them to read.
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SPEAKER_00: Such a command would make no sense because there was nothing to read.
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SPEAKER_00: And even if there were, the common Israelite couldn't read it.
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SPEAKER_00: When I say there was nothing to read, I mean the Bible hadn't been written yet.
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SPEAKER_00: Isaiah certainly couldn't tell people to read his book.
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SPEAKER_00: His life was taken up with delivering the oracles that would eventually constitute
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SPEAKER_00: the contents of the book of Isaiah.
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SPEAKER_00: Some things were written, the Ten Commandments, for instance.
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SPEAKER_00: But the only copy about which we know of the Ten Commandments was stored in
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SPEAKER_00: the most holy place of the tabernacle or the temple.
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SPEAKER_00: And therefore not available for reading.
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SPEAKER_00: We could assume that multiple copies of the Ten Commandments were made chiseled
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SPEAKER_00: in stone and displayed prominently in various spots in ancient Israel,
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SPEAKER_00: just as in America in the modern times.
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SPEAKER_00: But then you have the problem of literacy.
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SPEAKER_00: It is impossible to be very precise about ancient literacy,
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SPEAKER_00: but a pretty common guess for the ancient world is that about 10% of
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SPEAKER_00: the population could read.
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SPEAKER_00: It is almost precisely the reverse in modern America,
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SPEAKER_00: with about 10% of the population considered illiterate.
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SPEAKER_00: How has it come about that so many people in modern America can read?
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SPEAKER_00: It's because for about 200 years or more,
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SPEAKER_00: American society has invested a great deal of money and effort on public education
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SPEAKER_00: with the fundamental goal of teaching people how to read.
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SPEAKER_00: Learning to read is not easy.
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SPEAKER_00: You don't graduate first grade considered literate, even if you can read Dr. Seuss books.
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SPEAKER_00: It takes years of training to be proficient to read complicated texts,
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SPEAKER_00: and the Bible is most definitely a complicated text.
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SPEAKER_00: Absent a well-funded public education program,
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SPEAKER_00: widespread literacy is not going to just happen, not at the levels familiar to us.
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SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty good reason why a general requirement that Christians should read
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SPEAKER_00: the Bible would have made no sense.
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SPEAKER_00: As Keith Stenglin has mentioned,
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SPEAKER_00: at the time of the Reformation and following the invention of the printing press,
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SPEAKER_00: early Protestants usually stressed the obligation of all Christians
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SPEAKER_00: to read their Bibles.
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SPEAKER_00: Early Protestants did this.
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SPEAKER_00: This was a new phenomenon.
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SPEAKER_00: But there's another reason we never find Jesus or Paul telling believers
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SPEAKER_00: that they need to read the Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: It's not just that the concept of Bible,
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SPEAKER_00: as in a collection of sacred books that you could hold in your hand,
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SPEAKER_00: is an anachronism for the first century,
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SPEAKER_00: but also because the individual books themselves were enormously expensive.
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SPEAKER_00: Of course, everything was handmade.
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SPEAKER_00: The leather or papyrus upon which the text was written and the ink and the process
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SPEAKER_00: of writing itself, all done by hand.
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SPEAKER_00: I have seen the plausible estimate that in the first century,
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SPEAKER_00: a scroll of the book of Isaiah would have cost about a month's wages.
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SPEAKER_00: Most believers did not have ready access to copies of the biblical books,
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SPEAKER_00: even if they had been trained to read them.
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SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible contains no general command to believers to read the Bible as
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SPEAKER_00: a regular habit, like praying or the assembling of believers.
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SPEAKER_00: Such instruction would make no sense in their world.
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SPEAKER_00: It would have been impossible to carry out.
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SPEAKER_00: General Bible reading is a very recent phenomenon.
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SPEAKER_00: But yes, Christians should definitely read the Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean Christians now, with the opportunity and the ability.
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SPEAKER_00: The fact is, by this point, the Bible has been written down and collected together.
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SPEAKER_00: There are a plethora of cheap Bibles available,
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SPEAKER_00: and you can easily find an organization giving Bibles away if you need that.
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SPEAKER_00: And we have all been trained to read it at a very high level,
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SPEAKER_00: at great expense in money and time.
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SPEAKER_00: We are judged by God according to what we do with our opportunities.
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SPEAKER_00: And we, Christians in 21st century America,
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SPEAKER_00: have been granted the opportunity,
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SPEAKER_00: almost unique in the history of the world, of reading the Bible for ourselves.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes, we should read the Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: This is especially true for church leaders.
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SPEAKER_00: If any believers should be reading the Bible, it should be church leaders.
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SPEAKER_00: They will be judged by God,
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SPEAKER_00: not only according to their opportunities,
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SPEAKER_00: but also in how they have led God's people.
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SPEAKER_00: And so they need humbly to seek the will of God through constant devotion to Scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: But do Christians need to read the Bible?
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SPEAKER_00: Is that what God wants for us?
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe the point is not reading, but something else.
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SPEAKER_00: Could reading the Bible be a distraction from what God wants us to do with Scripture?
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SPEAKER_00: I'm asking these questions conscious of two influences, history and Socrates.
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SPEAKER_00: The history we've already mentioned.
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SPEAKER_00: Before the modern period,
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SPEAKER_00: it would have made no sense to tell Christians generally that they need to read
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SPEAKER_00: the Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: What did such Christians do?
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SPEAKER_00: Were they just not spiritual?
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SPEAKER_00: Or did they do something else with the Bible besides read it?
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SPEAKER_00: That brings me to Socrates.
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SPEAKER_00: The famous philosopher was not a big fan of writing.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes, I get the irony.
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SPEAKER_00: That the only way I know about the opinion of Socrates is that his student Plato wrote it down.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm sure Plato got the irony too.
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SPEAKER_00: But still, listen to Socrates.
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SPEAKER_00: This is from Plato's Phaedrus.
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SPEAKER_00: This is Socrates talking.
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SPEAKER_00: For this invention, he's talking about writing.
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SPEAKER_00: Writing.
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SPEAKER_00: Writing.
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SPEAKER_00: For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn
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SPEAKER_00: to use it because they will not practice their memory.
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SPEAKER_00: Their trust in writing,
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SPEAKER_00: produced by external characters which are no part of themselves,
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SPEAKER_00: will discourage the use of their own memory within them.
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SPEAKER_00: You have invented an elixir,
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SPEAKER_00: not of memory,
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SPEAKER_00: but of reminding,
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SPEAKER_00: and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom,
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SPEAKER_00: not true wisdom,
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SPEAKER_00: for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem
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SPEAKER_00: to know many things when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along
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SPEAKER_00: with, since they are not wise but only appear wise."
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SPEAKER_00: That's the end of the quote.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, do you think Socrates has a point?
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SPEAKER_00: I think he does.
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SPEAKER_00: And the problem he identified 2,500 years ago has
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SPEAKER_00: the last 20 years become exponentially worse with the proliferation of
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SPEAKER_00: the smartphone.
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SPEAKER_00: It has been commonly said recently that there's no need to know anything
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SPEAKER_00: because you can always look it up.
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SPEAKER_00: That is precisely what Socrates was complaining about.
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SPEAKER_00: People aren't wise.
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SPEAKER_00: They just appear wise.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to be wise, not just appear wise.
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SPEAKER_00: So let's sit with Socrates for a moment and hear what he has to say.
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SPEAKER_00: What does Socrates think people ought to do?
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SPEAKER_00: Not write stuff down, but store it in their heads.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, we might say that's easy for Socrates.
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SPEAKER_00: He's a freaking genius.
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SPEAKER_00: I think that's a fair point.
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SPEAKER_00: But Socrates also has a fair point that when you come to rely on external sources
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SPEAKER_00: of wisdom, you cease to exercise your internal faculties.
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SPEAKER_00: And that wisdom stored on the paper or on your phone doesn't really become a part of you.
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SPEAKER_00: There is assuredly a great deal of difference between having information
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SPEAKER_00: in your pocket and information in your head.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's not just about how quickly you can retrieve that information.
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SPEAKER_00: It's about, for instance, your ability to make connections between seemingly disparate subjects.
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SPEAKER_00: It's about having those aha moments.
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SPEAKER_00: Those moments are something akin to growing in wisdom.
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SPEAKER_00: What did people do with Scripture before mass literacy and cheap Bibles?
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SPEAKER_00: They went to church and heard it proclaimed.
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SPEAKER_00: And if they were good and pious,
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SPEAKER_00: they reflected on those words throughout the week
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SPEAKER_00: until they could hear another message from God's Word.
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SPEAKER_00: They mulled it over.
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SPEAKER_00: Let me remind you of Jeremiah's prophecy of the new covenant,
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SPEAKER_00: which the writer of Hebrews says has been fulfilled through Christ and the church.
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SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah said that when God made the new covenant with his people,
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SPEAKER_00: quote, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts.
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SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 31 verse 33, and that's quoted in Hebrews chapter 8 verse 10.
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SPEAKER_00: I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts.
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SPEAKER_00: I think Socrates would approve.
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SPEAKER_00: And then there's that blessed man from Psalm 1.
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SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
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SPEAKER_00: nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
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SPEAKER_00: But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
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SPEAKER_00: What is it that the man is doing with the Lord's Torah?
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SPEAKER_00: Day and night, he is meditating on it.
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SPEAKER_00: The word meditate translates a Hebrew word that also appears in Psalm 63, verse 6.
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SPEAKER_00: When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches.
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SPEAKER_00: According to the Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew,
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SPEAKER_00: this same Hebrew word,
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SPEAKER_00: translated sometimes as meditate, appears 25 times in the Hebrew Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: And it is the word used for the growling lion in Isaiah 31 verse 4.
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SPEAKER_00: And for the noise a dove makes.
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SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah 38, verse 14.
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SPEAKER_00: And the sound of a distraught mourner in Isaiah 16, verse 7.
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SPEAKER_00: The word often refers to a noise, not silent meditation.
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SPEAKER_00: So what is it that man doing?
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SPEAKER_00: What is that man doing in Psalm 1, verse 2 with regard to the Lord's Torah?
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SPEAKER_00: If he's making a sound,
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SPEAKER_00: Perhaps he's mumbling the Torah, reciting it, saying it over to himself.
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SPEAKER_00: His delight is in the Torah of Yahweh, and in his Torah he mumbles or recites day and night.
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SPEAKER_00: Understood this way, perhaps this blessed man has memorized the Torah or portions of it.
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SPEAKER_00: And he is reciting it to himself,
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SPEAKER_00: much as observant Jews still do today, morning and evening with the Shema.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is what it means when Jeremiah says that God will write his Torah on
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SPEAKER_00: the hearts of believers.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe believers memorize scripture so that, as the saying goes, they can recite it by heart.
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SPEAKER_00: They hold it in their heads, as Socrates advised.
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SPEAKER_00: Isn't this what pious Christians must have done in the long ages of illiteracy?
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SPEAKER_00: Not that God wants us merely to memorize Scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: When God writes His Torah on our hearts, there's more to it than knowing the words of Torah.
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SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah doesn't say this explicitly in the New Covenant passage,
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SPEAKER_00: but surely having the Torah on our hearts means that we do the Torah,
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SPEAKER_00: that we obey God's Word.
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SPEAKER_00: No matter how well we know the words,
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SPEAKER_00: we could hardly claim to have Scripture on our hearts if we casually disobey it.
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SPEAKER_00: In a previous essay, I stressed that Scripture is for doing.
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SPEAKER_00: And we need to hold that in mind now.
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SPEAKER_00: But I think I would also say that scripture is for meditation, contemplation, reflection.
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SPEAKER_00: This might involve reading, but slow reading.
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SPEAKER_00: You might want to learn about the traditional practice called Lectio Divina.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a Wikipedia page or just Google it and you'll find all kinds of stuff.
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SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps dedicate yourself to memorizing Scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: The main point is to invite God to write Scripture on our hearts,
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SPEAKER_00: to open ourselves to the work of the Spirit through Scripture,
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SPEAKER_00: to hear the voice of God in Scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: This way of looking at the purpose of Scripture conforms,
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SPEAKER_00: I think,
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SPEAKER_00: to the goals of its original authors,
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SPEAKER_00: both the divine author, God, And the various human authors.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's take the Gospel of Mark as an example.
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SPEAKER_00: But I presume the same points could be made with any portion of Scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: Mark produced,
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SPEAKER_00: I assume, several copies of his Gospel and sent those copies to different churches.
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SPEAKER_00: As a guess,
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SPEAKER_00: I would say the church in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch And the one in Rome
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SPEAKER_00: and the one in Alexandria, maybe the one in Ephesus.
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SPEAKER_00: And the reason for sending them to these churches in large cities is so that they,
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SPEAKER_00: those churches,
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SPEAKER_00: would oversee the further dissemination of this new and important text narrating
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SPEAKER_00: the ministry of Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: So that when Christians assembled, The text of Mark's gospel would be read out loud to them.
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SPEAKER_00: And when the Christians dispersed,
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SPEAKER_00: they would carry with them in their heads and hearts
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SPEAKER_00: the stories about Jesus
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SPEAKER_00: and his words.
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SPEAKER_00: And they would reflect on those stories and words.
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SPEAKER_00: They would meditate.
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SPEAKER_00: They would rejoice in the grace of God.
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SPEAKER_00: They would lament for their sins.
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SPEAKER_00: And they would consider the type of life that they should live in light of the words
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SPEAKER_00: and deeds of Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: They held these things in their memory.
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SPEAKER_00: And they would turn them over in their minds.
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SPEAKER_00: Memorization.
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SPEAKER_00: Meditation.
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SPEAKER_00: Words written on the heart.
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SPEAKER_00: It may be that a Bible reading plan...
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SPEAKER_00: I
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SPEAKER_00: have long been unhappy with the practice of reading the Bible in a year.
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SPEAKER_00: It is not the best way to learn about the Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: I hate to poo-poo any Bible-reading plan that believers will actually do,
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SPEAKER_00: but I fear that a Bible-in-a-year plan encourages people to read the Bible for
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SPEAKER_00: the purpose of getting through it.
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SPEAKER_00: Reading just because, to check the box.
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SPEAKER_00: I would guess that for some Christians,
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SPEAKER_00: maybe many,
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SPEAKER_00: who take up this challenge to read the Bible in a year,
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SPEAKER_00: the chore of having to get through three or four chapters of
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SPEAKER_00: the Bible per day compels them to read too quickly,
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SPEAKER_00: to let the word sink in, to allow God to write it upon their heart.
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SPEAKER_00: Now,
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SPEAKER_00: I am convinced both that God can use a Bible in a Year program to bless people and
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SPEAKER_00: that there are better ways to use the Bible to receive a blessing from God.
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SPEAKER_00: Reading the Bible in a Year is not the best Bible reading strategy,
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SPEAKER_00: whether your goal in reading the Bible is to grow closer to God or to learn about
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SPEAKER_00: the Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: There are better ways of using the Bible to do both of those things.
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SPEAKER_00: To learn more about the Bible,
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SPEAKER_00: which is not meditation,
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SPEAKER_00: remember,
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SPEAKER_00: but still,
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SPEAKER_00: we'll talk about it,
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SPEAKER_00: it would be advisable to bite off a smaller piece than the entire Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to cram for a test.
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SPEAKER_00: We don't have to know it all.
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SPEAKER_00: Just pick a single book or a small group of books,
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SPEAKER_00: maybe the gospels or the minor prophets, and read them over and over for a year.
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SPEAKER_00: Take notes.
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SPEAKER_00: Look for different topics, themes, each time through.
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SPEAKER_00: I've got more to say about this Bible reading strategy, but it is not the main subject for now.
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SPEAKER_00: But I will say that done slowly,
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SPEAKER_00: this reading strategy can itself be a type of meditation on Scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: Remember what C.S.
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SPEAKER_00: Lewis said about reading old books.
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SPEAKER_00: There are moments when, quote, the heart sings unbidden.
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SPEAKER_00: But we'll return to this theme another time.
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SPEAKER_00: Other strategies for facilitating meditation on scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: There's Lectio Divina.
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SPEAKER_00: I've already mentioned.
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SPEAKER_00: Look it up.
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SPEAKER_00: And there's memorization.
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SPEAKER_00: There may be others.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about memorizing scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: To do this, you will have to recite a passage of Scripture to yourself over and over again.
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SPEAKER_00: You will be mumbling Scripture, just like the blessed man of Psalm 1.
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SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you tried to memorize something?
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SPEAKER_00: A poem, a speech, whatever.
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SPEAKER_00: What I have found is that the process of memorizing forces you to meditate on it,
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SPEAKER_00: forces you to think about it from all kinds of angles.
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SPEAKER_00: The meaning of the passage becomes clearer through the process.
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SPEAKER_00: The point is not to have a passage perfectly in your memory,
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SPEAKER_00: although that is what you should try to do.
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SPEAKER_00: The point is to reflect deeply on the Word of God.
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SPEAKER_00: My family memorizes scripture together, thanks to my wife, Jody, who has headed up that project.
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SPEAKER_00: Here's what we do.
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SPEAKER_00: Every night, as part of our family devotional, Okay, we don't do it every night.
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SPEAKER_00: We manage to have a family devotional probably three to four nights a week.
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SPEAKER_00: Anyway, every family devotional,
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SPEAKER_00: we take down our box of index cards on which various Bible passages are written.
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SPEAKER_00: Some are very brief, just a proverb.
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SPEAKER_00: Some are longer, two to three verses.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think Jody got this idea from a website called Simply Charlotte Mason.
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SPEAKER_00: You can find more information there.
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SPEAKER_00: The cards in our box are divided up in the box in several ways.
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SPEAKER_00: One section has cards that we haven't worked on yet.
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SPEAKER_00: And then there are the cards that we are currently memorizing or reviewing.
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SPEAKER_00: There's the daily card for the most recent passage we've added to the rotation.
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SPEAKER_00: And then the cards in the odd-numbered days and even-numbered days for those we need
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SPEAKER_00: to review frequently.
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SPEAKER_00: Some cards are located in a section for the days of the week for less frequent reviewing.
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SPEAKER_00: And then other cards are grouped according to the days of the month.
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SPEAKER_00: Ideally, we will review every card once per month.
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SPEAKER_00: By the way,
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SPEAKER_00: all the cards have the scripture passage in the King James Version
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SPEAKER_00: because it's traditional.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a little easier to memorize due to its archaic language,
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SPEAKER_00: and that archaic language is just really cool.
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SPEAKER_00: I recommend the KJV to you, but of course, do whatever you want.
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SPEAKER_00: By the way,
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SPEAKER_00: the passage my family is working on right now at the moment that this essay
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SPEAKER_00: and episode are released is the epigraph to the essay,
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SPEAKER_00: what I read earlier, Joshua 1, verses 7 through 9.
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SPEAKER_00: It's sort of longish and it's giving us fits, but my kids love the word withersoever.
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SPEAKER_00: It comes up in the passage twice.
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SPEAKER_00: But also notice that the word meditate in Joshua 1.8 is the same word as in Psalm 1.2.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll also mention the meditation plan proposed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
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SPEAKER_00: a plan designed for the preaching students at Finkenwalde in 1936.
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SPEAKER_00: This plan begins with, I'm quoting from Bonhoeffer here, why do I meditate?
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SPEAKER_00: Because I am a Christian and because for that very reason every day is lost to me in
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SPEAKER_00: which I have not deepened my knowledge of God's word in Holy Scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: Listen, you should find a copy of this plan by Bonhoeffer and read it.
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SPEAKER_00: If any of my own thoughts are helpful to you, good grief.
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SPEAKER_00: Bonhoeffer, well, you know, he's better than me.
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SPEAKER_00: And this particular essay on meditation is only about five pages long.
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SPEAKER_00: Read it.
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SPEAKER_00: Bonhoeffer advised reading about 15 verses of Scripture every day,
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SPEAKER_00: but the same 15 verses every day for a week,
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SPEAKER_00: and then the next week going on to another 15 verses.
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SPEAKER_00: You were supposed to dedicate 30 minutes per day to those 15 verses.
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SPEAKER_00: In a different context,
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SPEAKER_00: Bonhoeffer encouraged believers to be in no rush in their personal Bible reading,
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SPEAKER_00: Quote, this is a quote from his book Life Together.
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SPEAKER_00: It is not necessary for us to get through the entire text in one period of meditation.
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SPEAKER_00: Often we will have to stick to a single sentence or even to one word
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SPEAKER_00: because we have been gripped and challenged by it and can no longer evade it.
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SPEAKER_00: End quote.
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SPEAKER_00: The main point is to slow down.
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SPEAKER_00: Quality and not quantity.
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SPEAKER_00: Or both if you have the time.
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SPEAKER_00: Monks have the time.
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SPEAKER_00: That's why they're monks.
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SPEAKER_00: I myself am sort of in the same position as a monk, sort of.
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SPEAKER_00: As a professor, I get paid to study and meditate on scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: Church leaders who take a paycheck from the church are probably sort of in
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SPEAKER_00: the same position and should spend a lot of their time studying and meditating
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SPEAKER_00: on scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that's what they're doing, but they should.
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SPEAKER_00: Quantity and quality.
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SPEAKER_00: But I don't think we can expect that of all Christians, even in modern, prosperous America.
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SPEAKER_00: And so we always emphasize quality over quantity,
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SPEAKER_00: by which I mean that in our morning alone time or nightly devotional,
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SPEAKER_00: we don't need to worry about speeding through a lot of scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: It would be better to spend the time,
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SPEAKER_00: the same amount of time,
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SPEAKER_00: whatever it is that we've set aside,
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SPEAKER_00: 30 minutes, an hour, whatever, thinking deeply about a smaller section of scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: The topic of these reflections has been personal spiritual growth,
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SPEAKER_00: basically how we can use scripture to take on the character of God,
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SPEAKER_00: to grow closer to him, to aid in our sanctification.
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SPEAKER_00: That's not the only thing that scripture can do,
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SPEAKER_00: even if it is the most important for the most number of believers.
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SPEAKER_00: But we are also interested in pleasing God with our lives,
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SPEAKER_00: obeying his instructions in scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: And sometimes those instructions are not easy to decipher.
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SPEAKER_00: There are many questions about ethical issues,
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SPEAKER_00: and there are many differences among Christian groups,
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SPEAKER_00: differences related in some ways to biblical interpretation.
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SPEAKER_00: For such issues,
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SPEAKER_00: perhaps meditation and memorization would be helpful,
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SPEAKER_00: but also one needs to study, research, which is its own kind of meditation.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll address the pursuit of such wisdom another time,
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SPEAKER_00: but I wanted to acknowledge that it is a different kind of pursuit from
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SPEAKER_00: the personal spirituality treated here.
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SPEAKER_00: In any case,
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SPEAKER_00: taking on the character of God Which is what we have been talking about,
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SPEAKER_00: cannot fail to aid us in parsing his instructions for our lives and in entering
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SPEAKER_00: into disputes with other believers about biblical interpretation.
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SPEAKER_00: The Word of God is living and active.
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SPEAKER_00: God speaks to us through this text and he wants to write these words on our hearts.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's cultivate strategies to make our hearts available to him, to facilitate his penmanship.