Reading Changes People

"The Bible says, 'Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?' (James 2) If you have taken God's Word to heart and truly made it part of you, it will by its very nature change you."

~ Intro to SOLO: An Uncommon Devotional

Last year I did a lesson with my students where I asked them why reading matters. We have made a huge deal about reading through our adoption of Accelerated Reader. We have parties to celebrate students who meet their goals, we have one or two book fairs a year to get books into the hands of students, and I give silent reading time in almost every library class. Why? Why is this reading thing such a big deal?

The students gave a variety of answers and then we looked at my list where I reviewed what they said and filled in some of the gaps they didn't think of. I did this lesson in 13 or more classes last year. In all of those classes, I only had one student - ONE, at a Christian school - talk about reading as it relates to the Christian life.

Books change us. Whether they change us because they teach us new information or because they give us insight and empathy for others or because they inspire us to do something amazing or because they teach us what we DON'T want to do, they change us. We can read the same book year after year and get something new from it, or understand it with a different nuance because of our maturity or our life experiences. While this is true of books in general, it is true of the Bible in the extreme. How many Easter sermons have you heard? How many times have you read about the prodigal son?  Hopefully each time you catch something new, or it speaks to you in a new way because you are a different person than you were the last time you dug into that passage. Good material speaks to us as we change and grow. Reading changes people.

Bible Apps

I have plenty of spiritual books and devotionals in my house. I go through seasons where I dig them out, set them by my bed with a notebook and a Bible. I use them a couple times before they become just a pile of things I have to move if I want a pair of socks from my dresser. I thought maybe if I used my phone - something that is with me all the time, and that I use for time filling activities like checking Facebook and playing games - I would be more likely to create a routine that would become a habit. I chose three apps to try these first 52 days of 2013 for my goal of spiritual growth.

The first is a devotional app by Joyce Meyer, called Joyce Meyer Ministries.  I picked Joyce because I have always enjoyed her preaching and her down to earth view of life and faith. I've only used the devotional piece, but there are also videos and radio programs to listen to. It was a free app and I've really enjoyed it. The readings are short, but I often find a nugget I want to write down and think about more.

The second is another devotional app by Joyce Meyer, based on her book The Confident Woman. I paid for this one ($3.99), which makes me reluctant to dump it, but I am not enjoying it as much as the free app. It may be that I am more interested in the general life messages of the free app than the "confident woman" messages of the paid app.

Finally, there's the free Bible reading app called BiOY for Bible in One Year. This app reminds me of my favorite part of writing Sunday School curriculum when I did that for the Church of God - the Bible passage commentary. Every day there is an Old Testament passage, a New Testament passage, and a section from Proverbs or Psalms. You click on the section, and you can read the text of the passage. Click back for the commentary on each section, based on a theme/anecdote that the author uses to tie the three passages together. It's a great resource and I look forward to using it each day.

All in all, I am happy with my app finds and the routine I have started for the year regarding spiritual discipline. Do you have any apps or other resources that you use in your faith journey?

Satisfaction

As I mentioned on  Saturday, I am working through a few new apps to help me with some spiritual growth in the new year (I'll talk about the apps I'm using on Thursday).

On January second, in my Old Testament reading about Adam and Eve, the writer said something like, "in spite of everything God had given them, Adam and Eve were looking for something more and succumbed to temptation."

Satisfaction. Contentment. Adam and Eve weren't content with all they had - they wanted more. They wanted the one thing God denied them.

Ouch.

I live a comfortable life in a country that has no concept of its own abundance. Yet I often want more - a house with one more room, more books, more stuff. How many of my goals for 2013 would be achieved simply by developing a contented spirit, choosing to be satisfied with the life I have right now?

This idea has grabbed hold of me enough that I am already thinking of changing my word for 2013 (maybe it's silly to try to pick a word before January! I keep choosing one and changing it a few weeks in!). Maybe "satisfied" is a better focus for the coming year.

All Greek to Me

I saw an article recently on Twitter or Facebook - one of those that you click on, read a paragraph for the main point and then click away from. The point of it was that Bible study for Christians might take on new depth and meaning if, instead of looking for what's new, we went back to something old - the original text in Greek.

Yeah, right. Like I have time in my life to learn a foreign language. I minored in French in college and refused to use it ever again once I graduated. My favorite Bible prof is not likely to personally tutor me in Greek, so I didn't think anything more about it.

Then, in church last week at the family reunion, the pastor was talking about a passage in Mark where Jesus feeds 4000 people. This is AFTER Mark's story of Jesus feeding 5000 people. In the message, the pastor specified when Mark used different Greek words than what our translation might indicate. And the idea of the nuances that could be gleaned from reading Scripture in Greek started to grow on me.

Oh, I still have NO time for Greek-as-a-second-language classes, but the original article's premise seemed a lot more reasonable than it did when I first perused it.