reading and pondering

I heard a recent exchange among men on the importance of "the spiritual discipline of study." Was good, but not entirely sure what to think of it, except I have either misplaced, or never owned my own copy of the book they were referring to (good author). I will be looking at that book soon. One of our pastors, Sharon, in the past has taken us through Lectio Divina in reading Scripture, and it was good.

My point here is that I think we need to learn to read the Bible well. This will involve rereading it, to be sure. And reading it slowly and carefully. Pondering its meaning both for the original readers, and for us today. And trying to catch something of God's voice to us through that.

I have listened to the Bible being read I think dozens of times in my life. That is good, and keeps me in all the books throughout the year. Yet I find that the best reading I do is the kind where I can stop and ponder what I just read. If we sweep over a book, that is good as well, because a cardinal sin of Bible reading, and Bible memory is to take one "precious promise" or whatever from Scripture out of context. We need to read each part of every book in the context of that book.

But we also need to let what we read soak in. We need to ponder and think through each thought we read. And see it all in terms of the Story of God, and how we fit into that story.

This takes time and effort. It certainly involves being in the Book daily, or at least regularly. But it also involves living life and reading other books and listening to others. The Bible reflects real life and the real world, so that we need not be threatened by what we hear and read out there, as we continue to read Scripture. Indeed, we'll often find it eveh helpful to us. Of course not all of us are readers, though probably most bloggers are, so that most anyone who will read this, is. But I find that we need to be in Scripture reguarly, and we understand Scripture better as we seek to grow in living as fully as we can in this life before God through Christ with other believers for the sake of the world.

What has any of you found to be true from your own life and experience in this?

a beautiful weekend

In my area weatherwise, we are enjoying a most beautiful weekend. When a post is late, that usually means I'm home, and away from my normal, workaday world.

This weekend here in the United States, we celebrate the birthday of our country. Tomorrow of course is July the 4th, which is the one date for all Americans- that is understood. Plenty of fireworks in store, along with parades and fun times.

For me, I like to read with my wife somewhere, probably over sodas or coffee, for my wife water or tea- outdoors, preferably under a nice shade tree and on or near a beach. That is relaxing to me. We can talk back and forth on what we're reading, and about life in general.

That for me is about as good a day as any I can think of.

(Of course Sundays in worship with others, are special.)

What is your ideal of a good day, one that you especially can enjoy?

live and think widely

Of course we are to be on the narrow way to which Jesus refers. This is the way of Jesus, the way of following him, the way of the Lord for God's people, the way of life as opposed to the way of death.

What I'm referring to here is our need as those in Jesus, in our own differing ways, to get out into God's wide world. Not only as a witness, but also as those who get to know others and better understand their culture and thinking. Only in that way can we be those who like Paul endeavor to be all things to all people so that we can see some of them come to salvation in Christ.

I'm also referring to our need to appreciate what we can learn from others, including nonChristians and really everyone. Of course there are those whose words can be destructive in misleading others away from faith; we need to be on guard for ourselves and others. We certainly need discernment in all things.

But there is much we can learn from others, while remaining in the word and in prayer and in fellowship with God's people at all times. I am sorry for the great fear Christians have over science. I was told not long ago by a good, intelligent believer as I marveled over the stars that scientists can know nothing about them.

Granted, we do find scientists who say very unscientific things, and write unscientific books. And to be fair any good Christian scientist, this especially evident in particular fields, will be influenced in their work by their faith. However Christians need to look at data for themselves and make up their own minds. God has not given us the world of creation, or nature to contradict his word, Scripture. Both need to be studied for themselves. I find such study fascinating, and I'm thankful for those Christians who do not run with fear from such study, but learn much in these fields from which the rest of us can draw knowledge.

We need to be those who keep asking questions, intent on learning more about God's wonderful world, as well as about what is going on in the world. We as individuals will take this in and process it differently. But only as we keep on reading or learning in some way will we keep on growing. Of course some of you will read a lot of fiction and poetry. Others of us will read other things. I especially appreciate learning from other Christians who have been able to study with depth into different areas. Reading from them, I can gain some good insights into God's world and life in it. Learning to see things in a better light myself. Of course while remaining in Scripture ourselves, and in prayer, as well as in fellowship with God's people (a good repetition).

What other thoughts might you add to this? Any objections?

reading

Reading in this day and age of entertainment is not popular. Though more reading is done overall in recent years because of the Internet I suppose, yet other pastimes dominate on it, I would think. Not that games or movies and other entertainment are necessarily bad in themselves. I'm beginning to learn to enjoy games much more.

But reading takes us to new places and stirs us in the way of Jesus. Reading stirs us in all kinds of ways in that way. I often find in my reading that I have to press through parts that are tedious or to which I don't connect that well. The rewards are there as I do. There is not much better than sitting or for me, laying on the couch with book in hand and some Mozart or whatever playing in the background. At work I fellowship while I'm working, and on breaks and at lunch lately, I read while I eat. We have a great public library system covering a good portion of our part of the state from which I and my wife Deb order online, and then can walk to our nearby library and pick up when it comes in. Add to that the college libraries in the area, particularly for theology, along with an excellent Christian scholar's bookstore (and more), and we're blessed in this area.

I've been told I read too much. This is by people who either don't read themselves so don't see its value well, or perhaps think I'm reading the wrong things. Of course, as a Christian I believe we need to be first and foremost readers of God's word, Scripture. I've been doing that by listening to the Bible Experience, as well as going over my Bible (and Greek New Testament) at work as I can. We're all different, so some of us will be readers and others not so much so. But we all need to value reading, and not despise it, even if it means reading slowly. Actually the best reading is done slowly I think. John Wesley was known for reading slowly, as he did so on horseback, brilliant mind and learning that he had. So we should take heart and keep building little by little in our reading. Better to get what little we're reading than read in large swaths and get only the gist of it.

And don't measure your reading by what you remember. Often it comes to you as you need it. And reading has its value in its impact. In the end the content in some way has to become your own. A part of your thinking and value and worldview. This requires discernment, and patience, as well as some hard work. And it requires a thirst for knowing what God might want us to know in Jesus. For me that includes all kinds of reading, theoretically. From Christians and non Christians there is much we can learn, much that can be helpful to us, as we remain those committed to God in Christ through the Spirit in community and on mission in this world.

What about your experience and thoughts on reading?

keep reading

We can be discouraged because we can see ourselves as not good readers, and thus we can fail to read, period, or do alot less reading then we should. Or we can pick up a book and lose interest in it, or have trouble finishing books we actually like. Or we can be slow readers. True of me, the best books I want to read slowly, though sometimes you can get caught up and carried along by a page turner!

I've been guilty and am guilty at times of all the above. But I've learned over the years not to let that discourage me. There is nothing I'd rather do every day than read. Doesn't have to be a long read, but I enjoy reading. We need to be encouraged to keep at it, as a part of fulfilling the Jesus Creed in seeking to love God with all our minds.

Above all, we need to keep reading or hearing God's word, Scripture. This is a Book we need to get into, as well as it getting into us. Like Eugene Peterson reminds us from Scripture, We're to eat this Book!

How is reading clearly beneficial to you? And how can reading be a pitfall to us?

meditating on God's word

Meditating on God's word is something we need to do, day and night. In other words, regularly. It's good to read widely, and I aspire to that. It's important to read good commentaries on Scripture and books with reference to the faith. I believe strongly in that, and I don't think we can read the Bible properly or correctly, just on our own, even with the help of the Spirit. The Spirit can help us, individually, in our reading, don't get me wrong. But the Spirit chooses to work through the Church, Christ's Body, so we'd best do both: being in Scripture ourselves, along with others informally and formally. See here, for an excellent explanation on this.

I've recently been working through an excellent commentary on Philemon, Colossians and Ephesians- while at work in my factory job, slowly going over Ephesians. Saying it over and over in my mind has helped me to appreciate its beauty and power as God's word spoken in Jesus into my life. And having listened to The Bible Experience, I can hear the voices reading it, and I've found this helpful. I am, admittedly, an audio learner; it seems that I learn best by hearing, though a combination in using our senses to learn, is good.

It's good and important to be reading all of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, but it's also good and important to simply dwell in a passage or a book, for awhile. Let the words sink in to our minds and hearts and lives. Ponder over them. And respond to God's grace in Jesus. Even if that means just being silent before God.

What would you like to add to these thoughts on this?

read slowly

I guess I'm not a fan of speed reading, unless you're reading something not all that riveting to you, but having some importance, or else having to complete a heavy academic load. I think here especially of our Bible reading. When we read Scripture do we really let it have a chance, as God's word, to really get hold of us? To do so means more than to just read it, good as that is. I think it involves reading it slowly.

We read it slowly in a receptive manner, to receive it as what it is, the word of God. We may not know exactly what God is saying to us, or how this word is impacting us. But the important thing is that we're there with our Bible, in quietness before God, to let him speak or impact us as he pleases. It's not an issue of whether or not we have to sense that speaking or impact on us. No. We have to proceed by faith and seek to do so with a listening heart as in the words of Samuel, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening."

Reading slow means to read letting the thoughts come to us. Letting the Bible speak to us on its own terms; thus truly opening ourselves up to the word of God and all that can mean for us.

This will take time on our part. Being unhurried. Reading Scripture can become monotonous and I think sometimes we have to fight through times of boredom and tedium in our reading of it. But often this is the case, surely, because we're not giving it the time and place it needs.
For my part, I tend to want to read it in large chunks and quite alot over time. But I'm afraid in doing so I may be running ahead of really letting the word of God speak to me.

I don't want to discount that fact that Scripture plainly speaks to us with mostly words that on the surface are not hard to understand. But it takes more than just an understanding of their meaning, but a work of God by faith, so that we will take in the meaning and reality of the meaning in Jesus, into the very fabric of our hearts and out from that into our lives. We are indeed, to eat the Book (cf., prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and John on the island of Patmos in writing the book of the Revelation).

I am a believer in us reading through the entire Bible from cover to cover, repeatedly. But I also think we need to be willing to read it slowly, and sometimes the same passage repeatedly. And we need to do this regularly, at least as a rule, once a day.

Of course some of us can have it quiet much easier than others. For some with babies and small children, quiet for any certain length of time may be impossible. We just have to do the best we can to get a space somehow, where we can do this, however imperfectly. The Lord looks on our efforts, not on the actual performance.

What help can any of you offer on this? Or anything you might like to say.

a great and good read

From Scot McKnight's new (and great) book, A Community Called Atonement: we are reminded of the centrality of the Cross. In Jesus' work for us in the Incarnation, he lives out his perfect life, dies on the cross, is resurrected, ascends to the right hand of God over all, pours out the Holy Spirit from the Father on the day of Pentecost, and is to return in judgment and grace for the consummation of making all things new.

Scot walks us through so many aspects of the atonement and what it means for us today. Initially, in my eagerness, I was flying through it, but before I finished, I decided to restart and read it slowly and thoughtfully. This is the kind of book that, while very accessible, deserves a most careful reading and rereading, and is among those books I will want to go back to.

Scot points out that God turns the horrible injustice in cosmological, political and spiritual terms into a glorious triumph through the Cross, in what ends up being an empty cross because of the resurrection. I can't wait to finish this book, but I gladly take it slow, like good wine.

It is a formative book, not bulky, well worth your time and effort, in fact you'll deeply appreciate it, if you like to work through a subject Biblically. And what more important subject for us than atonement in Jesus, and what that means for us in this world?

Get your hands on this book, and read.

reminding myself of "the Jesus Creed"

Scot McKnight is making famous "the Jesus Creed" which simply means the creed or way of life Jesus espoused, to love God with our all, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

I have a paper I carry around in my work daily, and the first part of it is "the Jesus Creed". After that is Scripture, the Lord's prayer, and the prayer of the week I post on Sundays from the collect of each day for that week from the Book of Common Prayer.

I go over this several times a day, and it is becoming more and more meaningful to me and seems to be seeping into my heart and bones so at least I recognize that it's there. I do think it keeps me in check at times, at other times it helps get me back on track, and even at other times I begin to feel it in my heart, wanting it to be worked out in my life. I'm testifying here much the same as Scot has, of which mine is a faint echo. I find going over this several times a day, day after day on weekdays (I want to do better on weekends) to at least be a good exercise for me.

Read the book, The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others. It's a great read in this way of life and one of those books that deserves to be reread from time to time (I consider it a classic), and most importantly, the truth in it to become more and more a part of us and of our lives.

keep on reading

Bill Crowder in our weekly chapel at RBC Ministries wonderfully reminded us this week of the Apostle Paul's devotion to reading (that being one thought in Bill's working through of Paul's last thoughts in 2 Timothy). We read from a man who knew that his end was near:

When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.

Paul was still reading, even with the probable bad eyesight he had, right up to the very end, still working on this or that matter. Bill reminded us of Herb Vanderlugt who right up to the end of his life was working hard on theological matters that thirty years before he had believed were settled. I remember visiting him a number of times in the hospital towards the end of his life. He was rereading N.T. Wright's three large volumes and would spend the first five minutes enthusiastically talking to me about his reading.

There are so many good authors we ought to be reading today as well as those who are gone. Some today: N.T. Wright, Mirolslav Volf, LeRon Shults, Kevin Vanhoozer, Philip Yancey and Scot McKnight readily come to mind. But there are a host of other good books and writers. Of bygone days there are so many: Augustine and Bonhoeffer are great for starters. But many, many others like G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, deserve our ongoing reading.

I like to work on books and writers that are challenging for life, and make me keep at it the rest of my days. As I heard or read once about Bonhoeffer on one of his books, it's like someone taking a straw to drink from a fire hydrant. Naturally more than we can take in, but like Scripture, which is unique this way, we work on such writings so that we can more and more grow into them in the days we have left.

So read. Reading is my favorite pastime I suppose, though many other things are much enjoyable as well. But reading is something I always like to keep near, even though I don't succeed in accomplishing nearly as much in it as I would like to.

Of course reading Scripture must come first and I take that for granted as I type this post, but we certainly can't take that for granted in our lives.

What part does reading have in your life?

reading

A few years back, I had the impression that I sensed God telling me, "Read. Read. Read."

I love to read. But there are so many other things in life that can come in and crowd it out. Good things. And plenty of them. Great in their place. Not so great out of place.

I venture to say that I get the greatest reward out of reading than most any other activity. First and foremost, of course, Scripture. Regularly. Consistently. Blogger friend Allan Bevere shared this informative, formative article from Christian History, entitled, "The Habits of Highly Effective Bible Readers: What we can learn from the church fathers that will enrich our own Bible study". It is good to read widely. But the more we do so, the more we need to keep at our reading of Scripture. Francis Schaeffer used to tell his students that it was even more critical that they should keep up their Bible reading, while reading philosophy. And to be reading it, then, all the more!

Of course read what interests you. What interests you is related to who you are which is related to how God has gifted you. Therefore I will major on what interests me. But also I will want to stretch beyond that, at times, to learn to appreciate other subjects and ways of writing. I tend to like nonfiction and theology, and hang all the rest. Except for good humor. Need some of that. But the blog world has helped me stretch beyond just what I know I like. Ernest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea is a great example of a fiction book that was a great read for me. And I look forward to reading more classics, especially theological, which I could easily neglect, except for good friends in the blog world, who awaken me to some of those books.

When reading I don't worry myself sick over trying to remember all the details (like I used to). I think more in terms of impact and formation, than ideas and information- though without discounting the latter. I think this is especially important in Bible reading. Though true in other, as well (unless you're reading much of politics or the sports page; that's good for practicing your speed reading and scanning- ha). I have to say, I'm not a fan of speed reading. Maybe some high speed intellects can do it. I can't. Even John Wesley, who knew by memory the Greek New Testament better than he knew the English translation of it, was known for reading slowly. Of course he did alot of his reading on horseback. I think it is perfectly fine to read slow. With pauses here and there to gather our thoughts. But to keep moving that pace. Even if you don't think you're really "getting" all of it.

Just some thoughts on one of my favorite individual pastimes. I think I'll go upstairs now and read.

What would you like to share about your own reading?