This week we looked at the Christian Practice of Study. Most, if not all of us, have learned the concept of study from our teachers in the academy.
When I was in school…cue the Scooby Doo flashback scene…I distinctly remember the feeling of writing papers and taking tests. Unfortunately I don’t remember the papers or the tests, I just remember the feeling of having to write the papers and take the tests. That might sound odd to have remembered a feeling of doing these things, but for me it is as memorable as a song that lodges in our brain and every time we hear it we are transported back to a particular place in time. The same goes for me when someone mentions having to write a paper or take a test. The process of writing and test taking really wasn’t all that big a deal to me, not that it was easy. Rather, it was the review of these papers and tests that gives me that such distinct memories.
Every class period I would get my paper or test back, and my eyes would be filled with red from the ink my teacher used to make notes on my work. The red ink formed phrases like:
1. Why didn’t you include______?
2. What about this _____ point?
3. Why didn’t you make _______ connection here?
And so it went from there. It was as if my teachers read only to look for the mistakes, not for the value of what I wrote. It was an odd way of reading. It was a reading that was inherently filled with caution, always looking to highlight the mistakes in what I had to say.
We don’t do anything else in life this way. We eat at restaurants, but we never go back to the kitchen and grill the chef on how he prepares his food. We drive on the streets without investigating everyone’s ability to drive. We put our money in the bank, and never demand to see the security system that the bank has installed. Yet, when it came to study in the academy, I was taught to lead with distrust at the helm. It was how I was taught to learn.
The reason I know this is because one teacher didn’t read my work that way. He read it to receive what I had to say, and then respond to it. Oddly enough, he didn’t leave red ink all over my papers. He used blue ink instead, and this ink formed phrases like:
1. I like how you tied these two points together. I haven’t thought of that.
2. What you are saying relates to ________ author. Have you read this book?
3. From what I am reading you are integrating the material well from class.
Now, I can’t say I got better grades in this professor’s class, but I could tell from his comments that he actually read and received what I wrote, then he evaluated it. In fact, he interacted with what I had to say in my papers and essays. It was a thoroughly different way of learning, and I actually learned a great deal from it.
This one professor changed the way I studied the Scriptures. Instead of being consumed by questions of what’s not included, I began to interact with and receive what is included in the pages of Scripture. Before I read the Scripture, I had to be prepared to receive it as truth. The reason is simple. What one relationship do I have where I led with distrust at the helm? That’s not to say, people can’t break my trust. It’s just that I have never had a friendship that was based on distrust. I could never begin a relationship with someone else if I were constantly evaluating him/her for what he/she didn’t give me. I think the same is true with our relationship with God.
At the core, our study of God’s word must be trust. Trust that God will speak to us. Trust that God will reveal himself to us. Trust that his words are for our benefit. When we receive and interact with God’s words in this way, we are choosing the blue pen over the red. That doesn’t mean we will not have questions. What it means is that the knowledge we receive will be imbedded in relationship. That is the kind of study that never wears us out, but renews and refreshes us.
Pray with me that we would be a community that would study God’s word well by receiving it as truth and interacting with it as we would any relationship.
