Journals, Bible Study, and Other Such Lies
I spoke at a camp last week where much time was spent talking about the devotional life. One group was told by a workshop leader: "You have to journal to have a profitable personal Bible Study."

We've come to a point where we have so little a sense of history that we actually believe that each Christian has always had a copy of the Bible...much less been able to read and write in journals. Personal Bible Study? I'm not sure Christians before the mid to late 1600's could even have afforded to own a Bible unless they were incredibly wealthy or gifted scholars. Bibles before the printing press could cost more than 10 years wages. For most of Christian history Biblical interaction has been through community...communal reading, story telling, and exposition. This is still true in many 3rd World Christian communties. Maybe that's the thing we've lost. Too much personal Bible study, too little communal Bible study. Too much of one person's view of the Bible...either my own or the pastor's or the author of some book...not enough discussion, midrash, and participation in the Biblical texts in a way where we in some sense enter into the Biblical story and find that it is our own.
posted by Jimmy at 9:59 PM | |