Thursday, December 07, 2006
Mind-Bending
Joe Carter has written an excellent piece on, of all things actually reading the Bible!? One of the best things Joe has ever done. He calls it "How to Change Your Mind" - quite a provactive title, and amazingly evocative of scripture.
Joe recommends a 4-step process:
Let's think about this for a minute. We are fallen creatures, and it is as easy for us to corrupt something as it is for us to extract God's designed benefit from it. Our analysis could easily go quite awry and it would completely escape our notice.
But scripture is not merely God's creation, and therefore generally revelatory - it is His direct revelation and when we analysis it we are imposing ourselves on that revelation when we should be drenching ourselves in it.
Does this mean I am against biblical scholarship - no, not at all. This simply means biblical scholarship is no substitute for reading the Bible. There is much to be learned from scholarship, much that has been learned, but it is also a filter and removes the power of God speaking directly to us. We need both. Study, yes, but sometimes we need to just read.
Joe finishes his post with seven helpful tips for making your way through the 4-step process. I'd like to add one more. MEMORIZE. It's not that hard people. It is something that I have slipped at in recent years. As technology has enabled me to have a Bible conveniently with me, word searchable, at all times - it is so easy to look it up instead of dredge it from memeory.
But it's not the same as memorization.
Related Tags: faith, transformation, Bible reading, memorization
Rom 12:2 - And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.But knowing Joe, I gotta think that's on purpose.
Joe recommends a 4-step process:
1. Choose a book of the Bible.So simple, so amazing. One of the things that annoys me from time-to-time is how much analysis we give to scripture and how that analysis can rob it of its power.
2. Read it in its entirety.
3. Repeat #2 twenty times.
4. Repeat this process for all 66 books of the Bible.
Let's think about this for a minute. We are fallen creatures, and it is as easy for us to corrupt something as it is for us to extract God's designed benefit from it. Our analysis could easily go quite awry and it would completely escape our notice.
But scripture is not merely God's creation, and therefore generally revelatory - it is His direct revelation and when we analysis it we are imposing ourselves on that revelation when we should be drenching ourselves in it.
Does this mean I am against biblical scholarship - no, not at all. This simply means biblical scholarship is no substitute for reading the Bible. There is much to be learned from scholarship, much that has been learned, but it is also a filter and removes the power of God speaking directly to us. We need both. Study, yes, but sometimes we need to just read.
Joe finishes his post with seven helpful tips for making your way through the 4-step process. I'd like to add one more. MEMORIZE. It's not that hard people. It is something that I have slipped at in recent years. As technology has enabled me to have a Bible conveniently with me, word searchable, at all times - it is so easy to look it up instead of dredge it from memeory.
But it's not the same as memorization.
Deut 11:18 - You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.Looking something up does not "impress words on our hearts." I think memorization greatly enhances the transformative power that this is really about. They cease to be words and become part of the fabric of our being.
Related Tags: faith, transformation, Bible reading, memorization
