Monday, January 19, 2015

Tools for My Trade

January 19, 2015

The year was 1970. Linda and I had just gotten married; I was taking summer school at Houghton College; the historical books of the Old Testament: Joshua through 2 Chronicles. The professor was Harold Kingdon. Other students who had taken courses from him were not very encouraging, but I had signed up, and was determined to form my own opinion, which turned out to be quite different from my classmates. I loved the course, partly due to the subject matter, but also because it was in that course that I learned how to study the Bible. The textbook by Robert Traina was pretty detailed; since then, I've discovered a simpler booklet that covers all the same material in abbreviated form. It's based in simple observation, which isn't really simple, after all. We usually tend to simply read, without actually noticing details, such as who is speaking, what is the grammatical subject, object, and verb of the various sentences, what comparisons or contrasts are evident. I learned to ask questions of the text, to pay attention to repetition of words, phrases, ideas.

I don't read the Bible this way every time I open it. Sometimes I simply meditate on a sentence or phrase. For example, take the phrase "The Lord is my Shepherd," from the 23rd Psalm. Simply repeating the phrase, emphasizing a different word each time, yields much food for thought and prayer (try it). Then there is Lectio Divina, an ancient pattern for meditation on Scripture. Read, Reflect, Respond, and Receive is the way I remember it; read the Scripture, think on it, respond in prayer to what God reveals, ending with simply resting in God's presence to receive what God offers to us in the text.

That single college course over 45 years ago has had a lasting impact upon my life, giving me the tools I needed to prepare sermons and Bible studies, as well as enhancing my own understanding of the Bible. My fellow students may not have had much time for professor Kingdon, but I am forever grateful to have taken that summer course from him. I took others, but this was the one that made a forever difference for me.

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