My Daily Pause

Three day old parrot being fed at the Prague zoo.

I read a blog post this morning about the content we choose to read. The masses tend to consume the easy to understand, non-threatening material while skipping the stuff that makes them think. They do not want a conflict in what they have already been taught. They want their beliefs affirmed.

Even worse, most people will quit reading when a post uses unfamiliar words or concepts. I’m not sure how we (the masses) expect to learn anything new when we are unwilling to learn new words or risk disturbing some deeply held belief.

An awful lot of people do that with their Bible study. Take the book of Romans – read all the way through, we see the full plan of Salvation laid out for us.

• We sin
• We need salvation
• Christ made it possible
• Through obedient faith we join his body
• Through our gratitude we serve him

The details of Romans are challenging and require lots of study and thought. All too often, Romans is cherry picked for specific words and sentences, leaving the context behind.

We should all be more like the noble Bereans. (Acts 17:11) Everything we read and hear about the Bible should be challenged, especially when it is a “new” idea to us. Without that we collectively become less knowledgeable about what God wanted for us. We risk only knowing what someone else wants us to think God wanted for us!

So to restate what got me thinking about this from a Bible perspective:

If we avoid Bible study that isn’t spoon fed to us, all we’ll end up doing is eating from a spoon.