Counsel of the Holy

The title is taken from this song:

This is what runs through my head when I think about the Bible. The honest truth is I don’t invest as much time in simply reading it as I once did. That’s not to say I don’t sit and read it at all, but that I don’t subscribe to the typical evangelical disciplines. More to the point, I don’t subscribe to the context behind the admonitions they offer.

As noted in the past, I find that churchians have no covenant awareness. When you boil down what they teach, virtually all holiness turns out to be a fleshly discipline. It has to come through the intellect for them, and it ends up being a herding of the cattle, not a leading of the sheep. They drive their fleshly nature from a fleshly level. We seek the otherworldly leading of the heart. You don’t tame the fleshly nature; you kill it. It often looks the same on the outside, but the internal dynamics are quite different.

As noted in a previous post, there were times when I would sit for hours reading the Bible, sometimes days on end. Back in my college days there was a thing going around about reading 10 chapters daily. I was so hungry for Scripture that it simply wasn’t a burden.

But that’s the whole point: If you aren’t craving it, you aren’t likely to benefit much from digging into it. Your heart knows what you need and when you need it. Yes, there is a place for academic study, and it’s work, but it’s joyful work. If it’s not important for you, then you won’t do it well. Human talent alone is not going to redeem you in the process of sharing the Word.

These days I spend far more time studying about the Bible. I can never get enough background.

Let’s put that in perspective. You already know that I’m working hours each week to review all the Bible commentary I’ve published in ebooks and such. I read through it, and frankly enjoy it greatly while I’m correcting grammar and clarifying stuff that strikes me as unclear. But I spend a good bit of time on the side making sure I’ve got the details correct. Something nudges me that I don’t know enough about one issue or another.

For example, I’m currently revising my Old Testament History text. I had to fix a lot of dates involving the story of Joseph in Egypt. Recent archaeological discoveries have changed some of the dates we use for various Pharaohs. So it’s not a waste of time to double check stuff like that; when the urge strikes, I look it up. (That’s something I’m going to miss if the Net ever goes down.)

And quite naturally I read the passages I use for our weekly study series, before I try to sense what God wants me to address. I’m not just regurgitating what I’ve already written in the Ancient Truth series.

By now, regular readers know that I strive very hard to get the bigger picture. Very early this took me away and down an entirely different path from all the preacher boys I went to college with back in the 1970s. They had a very strong devotional interest, but I had a strong contextual interest. When I heard the professors mention the unique viewpoint of the Hebrew people, I was fascinated by it. It took decades for me to get any kind of grip on that, but it deeply affected me, putting me on that different path.

So, the current weekly lesson series is all about the Covenant of Christ and its roots. I’m trying to make Jesus a living person in your minds. I certainly hope that you read those passages in the Bible, because I do several times when writing the lesson. I sincerely hope there’s a time in your life, sooner or later, where you feel drawn to read Scripture obsessively. I hope it burns like a roaring fire in your soul. It’s not a merely intellectual question of what the Bible says. It’s more a matter of how the Bible influences who you are.

I don’t worship the Bible. I do hold myself accountable to what it says, but it’s all about the God of the Bible. There is an academic standard to how I approach it, but that academic standard is what taught me that the Bible is the glass through which we see our Lord. The academics pointed me beyond academics. An honest examination of the very real data tells you that the data itself is insufficient, that the ancient people who knew it best would never settle for mere academics. I got that message. If that revelation does not burn in my heart, then reading the Bible was a waste of time.

I do have a copy of one of those “read the Bible through in a year” Bibles on my shelf. In the next year or two, I’ll go through it again as I have several times. But I don’t just read it; I always study and contemplate what it says. It’s not prodigious intelligence, but by God’s grace I can remember the vast majority of what the Bible says on various things. Yes, I memorized some passages, but no large chunks. Indeed, my brain doesn’t work like that. It takes me roughly 5 or 6 times the effort other folks need to invest to memorize anything. But I still remember what it teaches in more detail than those same average folks who memorized more of it than I did.

Right now I need to finish working on revising my commentaries. This is what the Spirit is urging me to do. And when He changes that urge to something else, I’ll do my best to obey. But the Bible is the Counsel of the Holy One; you can’t know Him very well without starting there.

Practical points: The discipline of the flesh will fail you. Don’t go in for all these difficult reading plans for the sake of discipline. If you don’t enjoy reading the Bible, nobody can fix that for you except God. Pray about it. If you’ve read it a great deal already, then stop worrying about it. It’s not a book of magic. The power is in the Holy Spirit as you read, not in the ink on paper. Memorization is up to you. If you need something, memorize it.

Under the Radix Fidem covenant, we eschew the notion of propositional truth. It’s not a matter of precise wording, but in the contextual meaning. Try to discern the historical and cultural meaning in which the words rest. There’s no obligation to learn the original languages, but it doesn’t hurt to at least pick up a few of the words. What matters most is that you try to absorb the Hebrew culture, because it still runs under the New Testament.

Nothing in your life will ever replace reading the Bible out loud with folks who share your faith commitment. Read it together and talk about it. And if husband and wife can’t sit down and do this at least once per week, that’s a very broken marriage. Husbands should be able to at least guide their family in moral matters. Can you manfully stop and pray with your household? Can you discuss what’s in your convictions? It’s all part of the same package.