God is smart. I mean, really, really smart. And He’s put His super-intelligent thoughts
into this anthology of books we call the Bible.
Divine observations and commentary on science, relationships, politics,
finance, psychology, human social behavior, and, most extensively, all aspects
of spirituality from the origins of the human soul to the future end of the
spiritual struggle against sin.
We’ve got all of
this in one collection, and yet we still don’t know what the crap we’re doing
in any of the areas above because we don’t read the frickin’ Book! Or, we read the Bible like it’s a dvr’d 90’s sitcom. We fast-forward to the same scenes we’ve seen
a million times and just repeat the dialogue we already know without paying
attention to what’s actually happening.
(Think about the
times you started your Bible time by opening to a random page, but you flipped
some more pages because you’d landed on a “boring part,” and you kept flipping
until you came to a “good part” that you knew so well that you didn’t really
even need to read all the verses. That’s
dvr-ing the Bible.)
That’s why you feel like you’re not getting anything out of your Bible study.
I work with kids and
adults who have been unsuccessful academically.
I minister to people who often say they don't get anything out of
studying the Bible. Here's what I've
realized.
They have the same
BAD study habits. Whether it's the New
Testament or the History of the United States, 1870-1940, I see the same
pattern.
Does any of this
sound familiar?
- You skip the
"boring parts" so you have no context for the parts you do read.
- When you read the
parts you like you don't pay attention because you think you already know that.
- You don't listen
to the text or think of the names in the book as real people with feelings and
individual voices, so it all seems abstract and pointless.
- What you call
reading is really just running your eyes across the page.
- You don't put
yourself in the text or connect what's happening on the page to your life or
your community.
From now on, here’s
what you do: LISTEN & SEE.
Let the text play a
movie in your head and listen to the words on the page like the events on the
paper are talking to you.
If you would LISTEN to
the Bible when you read it you, if you would open your mind to SEE what
Scripture says, then you would hear the Holy Spirit speak, you would EXPERIENCE
God’s Word, and you would learn so much more than you opened the Book to find
out.
Do that, and you’ll “get it.” You won’t
understand everything, but once you get a taste of how good the Bible really
is, you’ll never think of this Book as boring again.
Open my eyes, that I
may see wondrous things from Your law. (Psalm 119: 18)
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T.
Graves II is pastor of
Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of
the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization
(SAYNO) and director of rural leadership
development for the National Institute for Human Development (
NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can help support
this ministry by clicking the
DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or
money order may be mailed to
Hall Memorial CME
Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116
