Go with God and memorize His Word!

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You wonder why people choose fields away from the States when young people at home are drifting because no one wants to take time to listen to their problems. I’ll tell you why I left. Because those Stateside young people have every opportunity to study, hear, and understand the Word of God in their own language, and these Indians have no opportunity whatsoever. I have had to make a cross of two logs, and lie down on it, to show the Indians what it means to crucify a man. When there is that much ignorance over here and so much knowledge and opportunity over there, I have no question in my mind why God sent me here. Those whimpering Stateside young people will wake up on the Day of Judgment condemned to worse fates than these demon-fearing Indians, because, having a Bible, they were bored with it—while these never heard of such a thing as writing.

-From Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot by Elizabeth Elliot

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Pretty sobering, huh?

In N.T. Wright’s commentary Hebrews for Everyone, he makes the following statement:

“To spend time, prayerfully and thoughtfully, with scripture and and with Jesus, the written and living Word of God, is to know that gentle but powerful touch, like a very sharp and fine blade, producing surprising and perhaps alarming results. …With God’s word there are no accidents. God’s word is alive, as verse 12 declares; and the purpose of the two-edged sword is always to cleanse and heal.” (p.42)

Read the Bible patiently. That’s a hard assignment for most of us….the fruit of the Word takes time to ripen. So if you are the least bit impatient, you’re liable to bail out early and miss a rich harvest.

Others give up on the biblical text and turn instead to secondary sources. The moment they think they are in over their heads, they make a mad dash for a commentary to find out what some other significant saint has to say about the passage. In the process, they ruin the experience because they quit too soon….You have to develop some stamina, some staying power to hang on with a text until you start to make some progress. Let me suggest a few things to help.

Work with one book for one month.

…Zoom in and zoom out [identify major themes and also study significant details of books]

…Alter your approach [for studying the Bible]

[Finally, t]he keys to reading the Bible patiently are: Be patient with the text, and be patient with yourself.

Jonah Chapter 1

Jonah Chapter 2

Jonah Chapter 3

Jonah Chapter 4

This strategy of evading biblical truth by using only biblical language has been used over and over in the history of the church. For example, in 1719 over a hundred Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist ministers gathered in London to deal with the problem that some ministers, after reading Samuel Clark, refused to sign the Trinitarian creeds of their denominations. They had become essentially Arian. What was the key issue? “The technical issue was whether it was enough for ministers to promise to follow only the Scriptures” (Mark Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003], p. 43). The Arians insisted on “no creed but the Bible,” or no language but Bible language. The vote was 57-53 against traditional Trinitarians. Again a form of the “sufficiency of Scripture” had been used to undermine the truth of Scripture.

You can read the entire article here. May God grant us wisdom in rightly handling His Word!

Years ago I read a book in which the author wrote, “When I read this passage for the one hundredth time, the following idea came to me….”

I thought, You’ve got to be kidding! In those days, if I read a portion of Scripture twice, it would be incredible. If I read it three or four times, it would be miraculous. But here was this great, seasoned Bible student telling me that I needed to read it over and over again–not once or twice but a hundred times, if necessary, to gain insight.

Today I realize that he was wisely practicing the second strategy to first-rate Bible reading: Read the Bible repeatedly.

The genius of the Word of God is that it has staying power; it can stand up to repeated exposure. In fact, that’s why it is unlike any other book….Read it over and over again, and you’ll still see things that you’ve never seen before.