Welcome to Day 1529 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomBible Study – Serious Study As Adults Using Footnotes – Meditation MondayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend; I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1529 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.
We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Our current insights are focusing on accurately interpreting the Bible. Today let us meditate on:
Bible Study – Serious Study As Adults Using Footnotes· Insight Forty-One: Lots of Things in the Bible Can’t Be Understood by Children
I rarely watch television. It’s not because I have some pseudo pious objection to it. For me, it’s a time issue, except when it comes to sitcoms. If I were confined to a bed, I wouldn’t watch a sitcom. I used to love them as a teenager, probably for the same reasons I tend to dislike them now as a parent.
One of my irritations with the sitcom genre is how every adult is portrayed as a half-wit while the kids are endless sources of wisdom and clear-headed thinking. The only skills that mom and dad seem to have are getting into trouble and being smart enough to let their kids extricate them from their problems.
Maybe this is why one of my pet peeves is the notion that the Bible is so simple even a child can understand it. Don’t get the wrong idea—I know’ that the gospel story of Jesus really can be understood at a young age. I’m talking about more than the gospel. As someone who has taught a lot in the local church and through online forums, I’ve heard the expression stated as a duty to avoid thinking. It is implied by many who say, “I just want to love Jesus. Why are you complicating things?” I want to love Jesus too. So I might ask, “Why are you being lazy about knowing God’s Word?”
Serious Bible study takes work. It can be tedious at times. It doesn’t always provide an immediate payoff to address a spiritual struggle or answer a knotty question. Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” I can relate to this quote. I’ve never wanted to emulate anyone who halted their study of Scripture with what their kids knew. I’ve sought to be like those who put real effort and sacrifice into the enterprise.
As Art Linkletter used to remind television audiences, “Kids say the darnedest things.” They sure do, but I’m not expecting to hear one explain why God told Samuel to deceive Saul’s men (I Samuel 16:1-5), or what Paul thought when he talked about baptism for the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29), or a long list of other things in the Bible. Discovering those answers is for adults.
· Insight Forty-Two: Don’t Ignore Footnotes
Do you remember learning to...