It’s Bible Time! (Part 2: The Speed Trap)
Our culture makes a lot out of time. Mostly out of “saving it” and going faster and faster in everything we do. We’ve made a consumer virtue of impatience. We can’t stand to wait, whether its for computer downloads or paying for our groceries. Advertisers constantly tell us we don’t have enough time, and we certainly can’t be satisfied with something taking the same time it always has. Their new product is better because it’s faster. This equation is never questioned.
The whole thing has been a disaster for our Bible reading.
Some have tried to accommodate the trend and have produced versions like the “One-minute” Bible (for busy people). Hey, a little bit ‘o Bible’s better than none, right? (Marketing Alert! New product idea: the “Bit-O-Bible”.) The Books of The Bible takes the opposite approach, hoping to attract people to reading whole books, typically in more than sixty seconds.
It’s not just that we could stand to give more of our time to digesting these sacred words, we could also stand to read more slowly. Quantity of overall time is one thing, pace is another.
The fact is, the chapter and verse system has fed the speed machine. It allows the topical speed study. Quick, look up everything the Bible says about money, prayer, beer, or whatever. Read the verses, string them together, and presto! you’ve got the Bible’s teaching on that subject.
Only you don’t. You haven’t read in context. You haven’t taken the Bible in slowly and surely. You’ve taken it in speedily and on the surface. What if you were to take the time to find those selected “verses” more naturally in the larger paragraph? What if you were to take the time to locate that paragraph in the larger section of which it is a part? It would be a slower knowledge, to be sure, but also a better knowledge.
In our age of instant gratification, there’s much to be said for doing things more deliberately, including reading the Bible. Slowly has to do with savoring. With soaking it in. With pondering. With letting the Bible work its way deep into us.
Read in the right lane. Let the frustrated, impatient speeders go by. God has given us plenty of time— all the time we need. Let’s go ahead and take it.
yours for slo mo Bible reading,
-Glenn
This week’s recommended reading: Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book
The whole thing has been a disaster for our Bible reading.
Some have tried to accommodate the trend and have produced versions like the “One-minute” Bible (for busy people). Hey, a little bit ‘o Bible’s better than none, right? (Marketing Alert! New product idea: the “Bit-O-Bible”.) The Books of The Bible takes the opposite approach, hoping to attract people to reading whole books, typically in more than sixty seconds.
It’s not just that we could stand to give more of our time to digesting these sacred words, we could also stand to read more slowly. Quantity of overall time is one thing, pace is another.
The fact is, the chapter and verse system has fed the speed machine. It allows the topical speed study. Quick, look up everything the Bible says about money, prayer, beer, or whatever. Read the verses, string them together, and presto! you’ve got the Bible’s teaching on that subject.
Only you don’t. You haven’t read in context. You haven’t taken the Bible in slowly and surely. You’ve taken it in speedily and on the surface. What if you were to take the time to find those selected “verses” more naturally in the larger paragraph? What if you were to take the time to locate that paragraph in the larger section of which it is a part? It would be a slower knowledge, to be sure, but also a better knowledge.
In our age of instant gratification, there’s much to be said for doing things more deliberately, including reading the Bible. Slowly has to do with savoring. With soaking it in. With pondering. With letting the Bible work its way deep into us.
Read in the right lane. Let the frustrated, impatient speeders go by. God has given us plenty of time— all the time we need. Let’s go ahead and take it.
yours for slo mo Bible reading,
-Glenn
This week’s recommended reading: Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book
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