Comments on: Soliciting input. How do you read the Bible?

By: Alex Tran

Alex Tran — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:39:16 +0000

@Glen: Way to represent XA in your gravatar! "Are you in a fraternity?" ;) Ahh, the good ol' days. I have a special place in my heart for XA . . . Thanks for the video from Len. I just got done watching it. How do you think the apple/orange illustration applies to reading the Bible? How can we take a holistic approach as opposed to consuming in neat little chunks?

By: Glen Davis

Glen Davis — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:57:33 +0000

I stumbled across your blog while doing a random search for something about Andy Stanley and saw that you were involved in Chi Alpha. Excellent!

I just saw a great video about reading the Bible – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EkYQXlsyV4

Hope it blesses you.

By: Alex Tran

Alex Tran — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:39:27 +0000

@W: Appreciate you putting in your 2 cents. And also the Object.ToString(); reference. ;) I've also thought about the problem of getting people to want to read their Bible. It's actually something I've been thinking a lot about . . .

By: W

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:53:06 +0000

I read through the Bible very very carefully. I did read it twice from cover to cover but that was a pretty useless exercise in just meeting goals just for the sake of meeting a goal. It was never what God wanted me to do.

Before I did this, I often wondered why the Bible was such a small book. How could you fit the answers to humanity in so little pages? After I started reading it slowly, I began to realize the complexity and hugeness of it. Each verse literally has enough material to give me enough to think about for weeks to months. The Bible is like the function Object.ToString() or E = MC^2. That tiny little function has so much more to it that if it were fully explained – it would be pages upon pages of documents.

Just My 2 Cents. Your mileage may very depending on how God wants you to read it ;) Just remember, if you don’t read it the way God wants you to read, let’s just nicely say this will be a very very difficult journey.

Though I do have a problem. While I enjoy reading it, trying to get others to read it has been difficult. I find people who would rather listen to others, read contemporary books, listen to sermons, etc etc etc….. I think it would be easier for me to convince them to go to the dentist & have all their teeth pulled w/o anesthesia then it is to get them to read the Bible by themselves. Just them, God, and the Bible – no other human distractions along the way. It seems like a lot of people are terrified of reading it.

By: Alex Tran

Alex Tran — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:32:00 +0000

@My Biggest Fan: Demolish it, and do it again. Heh. I like it. What you said reminds me of what I read this morning.

Proverbs 2:1, 4-5 (NIV)
1 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
…
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,

5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.

One way to “look for it as for silver” is to “beat the revelation out of it.” ;)

Thanks for sharing!

By: I'm your biggest fan

I'm your biggest fan — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:29:17 +0000

Have you ever been really hungry for food that when you eat, you eat really fast. Lets say you are craving something specific, you’ll get that feeling, that desire inside your stomach. I’d say that being physically hungry is pretty close in explanation to being spiritually hungry. Its when you open your fridge, you know what you are looking for, but you are not certain, you can’t just think you know, you need to see it. In that, in certain times when i read the bible, I have been know to write out the whole book I’m reading. Other times I’ve highlighted every powerful verse and then gone back to it. When you read, and that verse hits you, don’t just mow over it, let it soak into you, even if you don’t understand it. Allow the richness of the verse to move you. There are certain verses that are just to rich in knowledge to understand, but you know that what your reading is gold. If anything, read one book all the way through first and beat the revelation out of it. So in short, take an epistle, read it over and over and over. Just don’t read it slow, demolish it, and do it again.