Living by the Book/Living by the Book Workbook Set (11 page)
Read Living by the Book/Living by the Book Workbook Set Online
Authors: Howard G. Hendricks,William D. Hendricks
Tags: #Religion, #Christian Life, #Spiritual Growth, #Biblical Reference, #General
The point is, do whatever it takes to approach the Word with a fresh perspective. One of the great killers in Bible study is the statement, “I already know that.”
EST
Y
OUR
R
EADING
S
KILLS
H
ow sharp are your reading skills? Here’s an exercise to test them. In ninety seconds or less, read the following material and circle T or F for each statement (without looking back at the article). Set a timer or have someone call time in exactly ninety seconds. Stop when time is over, finished or not.
DRY ICE
Can you imagine ice that does not melt and is not wet? Then you can imagine dry ice. Dry ice is made by freezing a gas called carbon dioxide. Dry ice is quite different from ordinary ice, which is simply frozen water.
Dry ice was first manufactured in 1925. It has since fulfilled the fondest hopes of its inventor. It can be used for making artificial fog in movies (when steam is passed over dry ice, a very dense vapor rises), and for destroying insects in grain supplies. It is more practical than ordinary ice because it takes up less space and is 142 degrees colder. Since it evaporates instead of melting, it is cleaner to use. For these reasons it is extremely popular, and many people prefer it to ordinary ice.
Dry ice is so cold that, if you touch it with your bare fingers, it will burn you!
Respond
1. |
| T | F |
2. |
| T | F |
3. |
| T | F |
4. |
| T | F |
5. |
| T | F |
Did you make it in ninety seconds? Feel no anxiety if you did not—you are at the start of your practice in reading quickly and responding accurately. Your aim is to improve gradually and surely, not to become an expert at once.
[Correct answers to the five questions can be found on
page 73
.]
From Norman Lewis,
How to Read Better and Faster
, 4th ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), pp. 14-15.
EAD THE
B
IBLE
A
S A
L
OVE
L
ETTER
Have you ever fallen in love? I hope so. I fell in love with the woman who became my wife, Jeanne, through a correspondence courtship. Five years I chased that woman until she finally caught me.
So guess what I did when one of her letters would arrive? Did I mumble, “Oh, no, another letter from Jeanne (sigh). I guess I better read it”? Did I sit down, read the first paragraph, and then say, “Well, that’s enough for today. I can check that item off my list”?
No way! I used to read every single letter four or five times. I’d stand in line, waiting to get into the dining room at college, reading her letters there. At night I’d read them before I went to bed. I’d tuck them under the pillow so that if I woke up in the middle of the night, I could pull them out and read them all over again. Why? Because I was in love with the person who wrote them.
That’s the way to come to the Word of God. Read it as though it were His love letter to you.
When Mortimer Adler’s book first came out, it was advertised in
The New York Times
under the slogan, “How to Read a Love Letter.” A picture showed a puzzled adolescent perusing a letter, with the following copy underneath:
This young man has just received his first love letter. He may have read it three or four times, but he is just beginning. To read it as accurately as he would like, would require several dictionaries and a good deal of close work with a few experts of etymology and philology.
However, he will do all right without them.
He will ponder over the exact shade of meaning of every word, every comma. She has headed the letter, “Dear John.” What, he asks himself, is the exact significance of those words? Did she refrain from saying “Dearest” because she was bashful? Would “My Dear” have sounded too formal?
Jeepers, maybe she would have said “Dear So-and-So” to anybody!
A worried frown will now appear on his face. But it disappears as soon as he really gets to thinking about the first sentence. She certainly wouldn’t have written
that
to anybody!
And so he works his way through the letter, one moment perched blissfully on a cloud, the next moment huddled miserably behind an eight-ball. It has started a hundred questions in his mind. He could quote it by heart. In fact, he will—to himself—for weeks to come.
Then the advertisement concluded,
If people read books with anything like the same concentration, we’d be a race of mental giants.
1
Likewise, if people read Scripture with anything like the same concentration, we would be a race of spiritual giants.
If you want to understand the Bible, you’ve got to learn to read—better and faster, as for the first time, and as if you were reading a love letter. Just think of it: God wanted to communicate with you in the twenty-first century—and He wrote His message in a Book.
NOTE
From Robert A. Traina, |
OUR
V
ERSIONS
OF
1 C
ORINTHIANS
13
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these
is
charity.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have
the gift of
prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed
the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long
and
is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether
there are
prophecies, they will fail; whether
there are
tongues, they will cease; whether
there is
knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these
is
love.
Holy Bible,
New King James Version
(Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1982), pp. 1107–8.
If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.
This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it shares the joy of those who live by the truth.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love never fails.
For if there are prophecies they will be fulfilled and done with, if there are “tongues” the need for them will disappear, if there is knowledge it will be swallowed up in truth. For our knowledge is always incomplete and our prophecy is always incomplete, and when the complete comes, that is the end of the incomplete.
When I was a little child I talked and felt and thought like a little child. Now that I am a man I have finished with childish things.
At present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! At present all I know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come when I shall know it as fully as God has known me!
In this life we have three lasting qualities—faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.
J. B. Phillips,
The New Testament in Modern English,
rev. (New York: Macmillan, 1955), pp. 361-62.
1 Atlanta 13
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have no love, I am a hollow-sounding horn or a nerve-wracking rattle. And though I have the ability to preach, and know all the secrets and all the slogans, and though I have sufficient faith to move a mountain, but have no love, I am nothing. Even though I renounce all my possessions, and give my body as a flaming sacrifice, but have no love, I accomplish exactly nothing. Love is long-suffering and kind. Love is not envious, nor does it strut and brag. It does not act up, nor try to get things for itself. It pitches no tantrums, keeps no books on insults or injuries, sees no fun in wickedness, but rejoices when truth prevails. Love is all-embracing, all-trusting, all-hoping, all-enduring. Lover never quits. As for sermons, they shall be silenced; as for oratory, it shall cease; as for knowledge, it will vanish. For our knowledge is immature, and our preaching is immature; but when that which is mature arrives, it supersedes the immature. For example, when I was a child, I was talking like a child, thinking like a child, acting like a child, but when I became an adult, I outgrew my childish ways. So, on the childish level [i.e.,
without love
] we look at one another in a trick mirror, but on the adult level [i.e.,
with love
] we see face to face; as a child [i.e.,
without love
] I understand immaturely, but as an adult [i.e.,
with love
] I’ll understand just as I’ll be understood. Now these three things endure: faith, hope and love; but the greatest of all is love. Seek diligently for love.
Clarence Jordan,
The Cotton Patch Version of Paul’s Epistles
(New York: Association Press, 1968), pp. 66-67.