What Do You Really Know About The Bible?

I just found an interesting online Bible quiz called What Do You Really Know About The Bible? which was put out by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. While their intentions was to attack the Bible while showing that the Bible is a best seller that is rarely read, I think there is still some value to it as it shows how easy it is for people to read their view into the Bible. While its true that most of the “correct answers” are taken out of context, I still think its an interesting exercise to see how well one knows the “letter of the Scriptures” even though its ultimately spirit of the Scriptures that matter most in the end. Regardless take heart as regardless of what your score is should you decide to take it, remember that its more important to know the Author of the Scriptures than the obscure passages that this quiz focuses upon.

Quick reflection on the Bible inspired by Eddie Gibbs

As part of the graduation rehearsal and student facility at Biblical Theological Seminary we got a short talk from Eddie Gibbs, who will be the commencement speaker. The part of his talk that stood out to me the most was the part when he talked about the importance of the Bible and being rooted deeply in it. He also talked about marking up Bibles with notes and the personal problems that he started with it. The first being the need to throw out your Bible after every few years to prevent the notes from hindering his ability to read the text. The second being that he came to realize that it was the often the parts of the Bible that he didn’t mark up, didn’t like and even disagreed with were actually the passages that he needed to hear the most. While I personally don’t mark up my Bible because of how I don’t want my previous notes to influence previous readings, I found his observations of why he changed sides on the issue enlightening regardless of how one feels about marking up their Bible. He also briefly commented on the language masterpiece of the King James Bible, in how unlike modern translations it was the last Bible that was translated to be heard instead of read. Which is reflected in the rhythm of its language, which is lacking in the modern translation which according to him makes memorizing Bible verses much easier in the KJV than our modern Bible versions. I found it especially interesting observation but it seems to make sense as a few hundred years I know that most households would have only owned a single “family Bible” at most and how the thought of everybody having their own personal Bible would have seemed absurd throughout much of church history. Yet our loss of rhythm in our Bibles goes to show how we are no longer have much oral traditions within our society and how it might have affected the role of Scripture in our lives. Finally the last point that stood out to me was how Dr. Gibbs talked about how his reading of Scripture has changed over the years in the light of George Whitefield, who made an effort to pray the entire Greek NT verse by verse. As compared how our Greek, Hebrew and theology classes teach us how to dissect a Bible passage into little pieces to examine, but the problem is when you dissect something you kill it. He shared with us that he prays through a Psalm a day and aims to pray though the entire Bible once every three years. Honestly at first I was surprised that he read or should I say prayed through the Bible only once every three years, given the big emphasis by many on the importance of reading the entire Bible yearly. But than again it had me thinking about his earlier comment about getting deeply rooted in the Bible, and how spreading out one’s reading plan over three years instead of a year could likely be a better way of better understanding and talking to heart what they are reading.

The Bible in 90 Days?

An estimated 75 million adults (42%) said that reading the Bible is very important to them (the Barna Group) … but less than 50% of Americans can name the first book of the Bible (Gallup).
Among Bible readers, the average amount of time spent reading the Bible is less than 7 minutes a day (the Barna Group).
And yet, the average person spends almost 5 hours a day watching TV (Communications Industry Forecast & Report)
~Stats from Zondervan’s The Bible in 90 Days - http://www.biblein90days.com/

When I first read the above I was shocked as I’m sure that a good number of you were as well. Although soon afterward I started having mixed feelings about the concept. Part of me wants to say good, if the typical American Christian really spends only 7 minutes reading the Bible and 5 hours watching television. Then a church wide push for them to read the entire Bible in 90 days will do them good and hopefully set their priorities straight. The downside to this approach is that it is a marketing ploy that uses guilt to sell a program for a profit. As according to the website one needs the 90 Day NIV Bible, a participants guide and to be a member of a church group which needs a leaders guide and a DVD in order to read the Bible in 90 days. I’ll admit that I’m bias because my Bible translation of choice is not the NIV but the ESV, but doesn’t this seem a bit over the top to you? Especially since most Christians in this country most likely already have a Bible or two, so yet another Bible is probably the last thing that they need. It also makes me wonder what happens to most of the 90 Day Bibles after the program is over, as I could see them being set aside, making it all the more easier for one to fall into the pattern of not reading the Bible again. So I believe that using an existing personal Bible is probably a better idea. Also maybe I’m a bit hardcore when it comes to devotional ideas, the given the norm of the Bible in a year plan, I wonder how many people turn the Bible in 90 days plan into reading the Bible 4 times in a year. But I will admit that they deserve some credit for making their 90 day reading plan (actually 88 days with 2 grace days) available for free of charge on the website. So if you feel up for a Bible reading challenge I’d recommend you checking out the site and downloading a Bible bookmark with the reading plan to print out. And you have my permission not to buy anything and to use a Bible other than a NIV if you feel like it.

Biblical Food For Thought

It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood.” (Leviticus 3:17 ESV)

There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
(Mark 7:15-23 ESV)

The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
(Acts 10:9-16 ESV)

As Christians the Old Testament Dietary Laws often come off to us as seeming overly restrictive and unnecessary, so we normally brush them over without much regard. Sure as Christians its true that we are not obligated to keep the Old Testament Law. Yet at the same time simply because we are not obligated to keep the letter of the Law, does not mean that we are not able to learn from it. As the whole of Torah comes from God, our creator who ultimately knows what is best for us. Just like we all know that following the Biblical sexual guidelines will protect us from sexual transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. So when it comes to food, can we also assume that God knows what is best for us as well? I find it interesting that Law bans both the eating of animal blood and fat. Sure we know today that its impossible to eat meat without eating some fat, but I think its a safe assumption to take it as meaning one is avoid all visible fat when eating meat. I’m sure most churches today would freak out if it was discovered that one of their members was eating animal blood on a regular basis, and be horrified by this vampire like behavior. Yet at the same time view it as perfectly acceptable to eat visible animal fat on a regular basis with its meals. We can only speculate as to why God forbade the Hebrews from eating blood, but its a safe guess that it was a mix of the spiritual significance of holy blood sacrifice and possible health issues from eating animal blood. Although we now know that in order to maintain good health it is in one’s best interest to limit the amount of fat and especially animal fat that one eats. While I doubt its possible to strongly argue that its a sin for Christians to eat visible animal fat today, that does not mean that its in our best interest to do so. Just like the Bible speaks out against greed in both the Old and New Testaments which has traditionally been expressed as gluttony by the church in regards to greed with food. I find it interesting that today that term gluttony is for the most part no longer used by the Church today. Not that I think that we need to become more legalistic, just that God cares about gluttony because it is in our best interest to maintain or reach a healthy body weight.

Just a little longer

Yesterday I had an unbelievable workout which turned into reverse procrastination in a way. I recently adopted a fitness goal to get at least 10 minutes, while aiming toward 15 minutes, of exercise a day on our Nustep cardio machine with Sundays off. After the first 10 minutes I decided to aim for another 5 minutes. Followed by another set and another before forcing myself to stop at 25 minutes out of fear of overdoing it. Hard to really explain the rush at the time and a feeling of accomplishment from getting icky enough from the workout to need to shower afterward despite exercising inside with air conditioning. Even though it came to me as a surprise as what some might call a fitness high, in a way it should have been expected. I was following the advice of the fitness experts of starting with short workouts starting at around 10 minutes to build consistency first before endurance, while claiming that you will come to enjoy exercise in time. So in that sense what happened was to be expected because I was following their advice a healthier lifestyle.

I think the Bible also works by the same principal in a way. I’m sure everyone has heard complaints from someone that they find the Bible too boring to read, much like chronic couch potatoes will say that exercise is too physically demanding for them to manage. Yet just like we hear physical experts telling people the need to be physically active to stay healthy, we hear Christians, clergy and laymen alike talking about the importance of regular reading of the Bible and often advice reading through the entire Bible at least once a year. Yet according to statistics only around half of American Christians read the Bible on a weekly basis, most have never read the entire Bible and others read through the Bible once often in their younger days and have since set it aside for good. Yet the real shame is that it that reading through the entire Bible in a year only takes 3 chapters a day. Sure I realize that virtually nobody will go without any missed days so 4 chapters a day on most days might be more reasonable plan. Although to many this might seem as equally overwhelming as someone being told that they should exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, so why not try the 10 minute principle from our friends the fitness experts and recommend starting at reading a chapter of the Bible a day. Sure if might not sound impressive but if one kept it up they would read everything in 3 years but probably much sooner. As it turns out that Bible reading just like exercise becomes more enjoyable the more you do it as you become more in tune with the unique style of the Bible and God’s concerns contained within, so it is only natural to want to read for longer as time goes on. Also just like with exercise, the hardest thing with Bible reading is often getting started but once you do you’ll do fine. Just watch out that things don’t get out of hand as it is actually possible to fall into the trap of using Bible reading as a form of procrastination.

praying what is beloved yet too often neglected

The Psalter is in word one of the most beloved books of the Bible but in practice is often one of the more neglected Biblical books. For the most part, the Psalms are never the focus of sermons as honestly most clergy do not know what to do with them in terms of preaching. So what is one to do with the Psalms? How about pray through them as it is done with the Daily Office or the Liturgy of the Hours. I’m sure the a good number of the Protestants reading this have never heard of the Daily Office before, as did I up until a year ago and have only made an attempt at keeping it for the past month so it deserves a bit of explanation.

The Daily Office or Liturgy of the Hours, is simply set times of prayer throughout the day much like is common today in Islam and Judaism. The core of the Liturgy of the Hours is reciting or praying through the Psalter at set times through the day. Under its earliest form which grew out of the monastic traditions one worked through the entire Psalter ever week at the hours of Matins (night), Lauds (dawn), Prime (6AM), Terce (9AM), Sext (Noon), None (3PM), Bespers (Evening when lamps are lit) and Compline (upon retiring). However, later on for practical purposes to allow those not living within monasteries to practice it the hours were revised to a monthly instead of weekly cycle with 3/4 major Hours, morning (Lauds), evening (Vespers), night (Compline) and the Office of Readings as a modification of Matins as a movable hour normally prayed during the day often combined with Lauds. Likewise Prime was dropped and the other “minor” hours if observed were reduced to reciting a single Bible verse or two. If that sounds too complicated why not check the Universalis to see it in print. The site is Roman Catholic but don’t let that scare any Protestants away as for the most part it is just praying through what is in the Bible. Still I’ll admit that it is a little weird at first to see various feast names used in passing that I’m not familiar with and very liberal use of the Gloria Patri.

Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Worn and tattered pages

A few days ago I was talking with Toni online about the previous Bible versions post and the conversation soon turned toward the books themselves. I told her that at times I joke about wanting to wear out at least one Bible through frequent use not abuse before I die, which would require picking a translation and sticking with it as a primary Bible for more than a few years. She shared my feelings about seeing a well-worn treasured Bible as a desirable thing to own. Also while I know that it is not always the best idea to compare oneself or one’s Bible to others and their Bibles, I think its convicting in a way how some people stand out from how worn their Bibles have become. It makes me wonder if I’m just unusually medieval with my books which I try to take good care of to the point of never writing in them beyond the name plate page. As if its not that it means that other people are either a lot more rough with their Bibles than I am with mine or spend a lot more time reading it than I do with mine.

Blessings or Curses

At first glance, English when it comes to the Bible is a very fortunate language compared to others that do not have any translation of the Bible available. Yet at times I wonder if this freedom of choice of ones version of the Bible is more of a blessing or a curse. While I’m not a supporter of the King James Version Only crowd, their arguments while flawed in my opinion do manage to make a few good points here and there. As while I strongly believe that it is important for everyone to be able to have a copy of the Bible to read that they can understand, it has come at the price of confusion and division. Just like as a seminary student I am often asked by others which version of the Bible is the best by others which is something that I am uneasy giving a hard answer one. As every Bible translation to some extent is a compromise between accuracy and readability, while some clearly end up better than others but that is not the main point. For example my Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament are clearly the most accurate Bibles that one can buy but very few people reach a level of fluency in Greek and Hebrew to be able to read and understand it in real time. Personally it takes me at least 5 minutes to work my way through a single Greek or Hebrew Bible verse and even then I often end up with a use at your own risk broken English passage and that is after 2 semesters of Greek and Hebrew in seminary. Still on the other hand I’m sure most of us have been part of a Bible study where not everyone had the same version and the group ended up spending more time comparing translations and wondering which one was more accurate than engaging the common meaning clearly visible in both translations. Also the spiritual discipline of memorizing Bible passages has become a lost art lately and I have a feeling that the explosion of Bible translation is partially behind it. After all if you are going to take the effort and time to memorize a section of the Bible one must first choose which translation to use, and wonder if they will still be using it a few years later. Personally I’ve never made the effort to memorize any passages of the Bible and over the past decade I’ve used multiple versions of the Bible ranging from the NRSV, NIV, NKJV, KJV and most recently the ESV. Does anyone reading this practice Scripture memorization? If so I’d love to hear how Bible versions figure into the equation for you.

motive above skill?

“There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself … as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! Ye see it in smaller matters. Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organizer of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all snares.”
~an excerpt from The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis pages 73-74

The other major point that stuck out to me while reading C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce was the danger of missing God while engaging in ministry. It seems sad in a way that one’s devotion towards a good cause has the potential of destroying their love for it, especially when it comes to God. Just goes to show once again how God is ultimately after our hearts and inner motives instead of our outward actions. Scary in a way as it means that an incompetent Sunday school teacher who is unable to plan a good lesson but still strives to do their best out of love for God and the children of the church, may in fact be in God’s eyes more righteous than a gifted preacher whose sermon series consistently become Christian best sellers when converted to book format, because they lost sight of God in their preaching. Even more alarming and sad is that in the light of Matthew 7:22-23 and Matthew 23:1-7, one is faced with the reality that many of the redeemed were won to Christ through the efforts of the damned. Shocking I know to think that the gifted in leadership are the ones most likely to miss God in their apparent service toward Him. But then again maybe that is why in a way God favors or at least considers blessed fools whose heart is in the right place, not because they come off as needing extra help but because they are less likely to place their trust in themselves instead of God as they are more aware of their need for Him.

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
(Matthew 7:22-23 ESV)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you–but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.
(Matthew 23:1-7 ESV)

Psalms

I think the book of Psalms is too often neglected even though it is thought highly of by most. I think the traditional monastic reading schedule which includes reading through the book of Psalms once a month really had something to it after doing so myself. I was especially shocked at first by how much anger and harsh words are found within the Psalter against God, as a stark contrast to the modern tendency to be calm and polite in our prayers. Does this mean that God desires us to be more upfront and honest with Him even if it means that we are screaming at him and praising him less? Probably given the Church’s role as new/true Israel which means one who struggles with God, even though its highly unlikely that any of us will experience it in the same physical sense as Jacob.