Practices for Lent that Help us Be with Jesus: Week 4

Bible Study: Reading, studying, meditating upon, and memorizing God's words.

Article: 

“Much of what falls into the category of Bible study these days can serve to keep Scripture...at a distance...We anatomize Scripture, breaking it down into component pieces and categories, but we struggle to see it as a whole…But while the modern impulse is to study the Bible like one might study gypsy moths or cheese mold, previous generations treated the Bible as a living thing...To that end I want to suggest a couple of practices that reorient our approach to the Bible, aiming at the imagination and the heart...

Ignatius of Loyola taught his followers to read the Gospels with an active imagination.  Hear the story of Jesus healing a paralytic or talking with the woman at the well, and imagine yourself in the story, encountering Jesus, hearing his healing words as if he were saying them to you.  Hear it as if you were the paralytic or as if you were a bystander.  Feel the heat of the sun, the weariness of a journey on a long road, the shame of sin and exposure, the judgment and condemnation from religious professionals, and imagine Jesus.  What might he sound like?  Does he touch you as he passes?  Does he look you in the eyes?  What do you hear?  What do you feel? 

Scripture is living.  It’s meant to to take root, growing and flowering in the heart and mind.  Don’t just know what the story says; know how it feels, explore what the characters in the story must have experience when they encountered Jesus, or saw the seas part, or watched Lazarus scroll out of an empty tomb picking gauze off his newly-animated skin.  The point is not to turn the Bible into a Choose Your Own Adventure story but to let the Bible speak with a richness we often deny it.

How to practice it?  This may sound obvious, but go somewhere where you can avoid interruption. 

Set a timer.  This allows you to not worry about how long you should go or when you’re done.  Put your phone on do not disturb and put the timer out of view.  When the bell rings, you’re done.  Initially, you should aim small--just a few minutes (3-5)--but as you get more comfortable with it, add a few minutes at a time.

Practices like this should have a beginning, middle, and end--a routine that your mind and body learn and can easily step into.  Begin by taking a moment to calm down your mind and body.  Sit in a chair, or kneel on the floor, and open your Bible.  Pray...Take a short passage from one of the Gospels, such as any of the stories in Matthew 8.  Read the passage a couple of times and allow your imagination to start filling in the details: the scenery, the weather, the sounds in the background, the smell of the sea or (less pleasant) the smell of the leprous beggar.  Imagine the nervous expression on the face of the centurion.

After a couple of readings, let your mind wander into that world.  Focus on senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, taste.

When the timer goes off, take another moment to pray and reflect.  What struck you?  What part of the story might be worth coming back to later in the day?...These...practices train us to bring our imaginations and our hearts into the text...They help us experience the Bible not as a textbook, and not as a corpse, but as living, breathing words.”¹

Helpful Verses: 

Blessed is the man who[se]…delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water.  Psalm 1:1-3

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.  More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.  Psalm 19:7-11

All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.  2 Timothy 3:16-17

Interesting Quotes: 

"Without the Bible, we are all wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked, because we cannot see the most obvious and the most necessary thing in the world—we cannot see the glory of God, the very thing for which we were made.  But in his word, God opens blind eyes.  Through his word, God answers Moses’s prayer, the prayer of us all, if we know what it is we should ask for: ‘Show me your glory’.  Not by coming to us mystically while we read, as if Bible reading were a magical incantation.  God reveals himself in his word.  He shows his glory through the ordinary words on the page.  If you want to see God, read your Bible.”  John Piper 

"If we learn to read the Bible down (into our hearts), across (the plot line of Scripture), out (to the end of the story), and up (to the glory of God in the face of Christ), we will find that every bit of Scripture is profitable for us.” Kevin DeYoung 

“The Bible does not want to be neatly packaged into three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day increments. It does not want to be reduced to truisms and action points.  It wants to introduce dissonance into your thinking, to stretch your understanding. It wants to reveal a mosaic of the majesty of God one passage at a time, one day at a time, across a lifetime.”  Jen Wilkin

Exercises: 

1) Start (or end) your day by reading the Bible--read whatever you’d like. 

2) Rather than racing through the text each day, use the following acronym (B.R.E.A.D.) to help you slow down and delve deeper into the passage. 

• Be still: Find a place where you can encounter God.  Remember His love for you.  Focus on calming your mind from whatever it is you have to do or whatever is distracting you.  Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your time in the word.
• Read: Read through your passage.  Read through it again slowly if you need to.  Look for one verse that stands out to you, grabs your attention, or interests you.  Write down that verse. 
• Encounter God: Taking your chosen verse, begin to meditate on it.  What comes to mind as you think about it?  How does it make you feel?  What do you think God is trying to show you through this verse?  Write a short reflection on what you think He might be saying to you?
• Apply: Now, turn your focus outwards.  Think about how you might be able to apply this truth to your day?  Write down one thing from your passage that you’re going to try and live out. 
• Devote: Finally, close by writing a simple prayer of devotion to God.  Ask God to fill and empower you and devote your day to Him. 

3) If you find yourself confused by what you’re reading, use the Bible Project resource to help you understand the context of the passage you are studying.  

¹ Mike Cosper, Recapturing the Wonder, 69-73.