Here is one thing that will happen as you continuously read through the Bible, especially if you read through in different translations.
Familiar texts will sneak up on you.
You will arrive at this familiar text from another direction without all the usual layering which comes from our highlighting marks, underlining and notes written in the margin. Not that this is always bad but all our previous notes are sometimes more like baggage than helpful insight.
Some of you, very possibly many of you, don’t want to hear this, don’t like to hear this, but it is true.
All that well-worn Bible shows sometimes is just a person who has worn multiple paths through their Bibles because they stay in the familiar. And, yes, if I have not stated it clearly enough, I am saying that many of our notations, underlining and highlighting are more harmful than good.
Sure, it is easier to find “what we believe” in a particular text of Scripture, but wouldn’t you really prefer hearing the voice of God, seeing the text more as God has displayed it?
Sometimes my wife and I take rides in the country. Sometimes we just take a random route, this way, that way, not caring really where we are going, just enjoying the scenery.
We did this one day and as we were driving into a town, I could not figure out where we were. But it was a very familiar place to us. We had been there many, many times; we just hadn’t come in from that direction before, and we saw it much differently.
I have done this in my Bible reading; seeing texts as I never had before because I didn’t have all the “markers” telling me where I was and what everything meant before I even read it.
Here are some examples: The beauty of life found in the book of Deuteronomy. Finally understanding what we call “the beauty contest” in the book of Esther actually is. Jesus making wine at a wedding feast that could actually get people high. Taking every thought captive in 2 Corinthians 10, not taking every “bad” thought captive as we were always taught. Too many instances of this for me to remember.
But two things at least have to happen. One, we have to read the words of God regularly, and listen and think and meditate. We need a regimen that reflects our stated professions of how wonderful God’s word is. And, two, we have to be willing to be changed, or “perish the thought” have our minds changed.
We need to do less studying and more bowing down, taking the words of God in as life.
And that is living.
