bible study olympics

"Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase "Breakfast of Champions" by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes."

this is the first of three 4000 calorie meals michael phelps ate daily in order to keep his energy levels high during the olympics. understandable considering he swam 17 times over 9 days of competition.

believe it or not, this got me thinking about how we read the bible ... i know i'm nuts ... always have been; always wiill be.  anyway, every so often i hear someone complain that they are not being fed enough at their church. what they mean is that the preacher is not getting deep enough in to the bible. my first thought when i hear someone say this is, "what are you doing with the bible 'scoop' you are getting?"  

people tend to forget that bible study is not an end in itself; it is preparation for impact...for making a difference ... for joining god on mission.

my point is this:  if you want 12000 calories of bible, you better be ready to join god at whatever pace it takes to burn those calories.

do you study or live christianity?

i came across this quote from soren kierkegaard that speaks volumes to the state of american christianity:

the matter is quite simple. the bible is very easy to understand. but we christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. we pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. take any words in the new testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. my god, you will say, if i do that my whole life will be ruined. how would i ever get on in the world? herein lies the real place of christian scholarship. christian scholarship is the church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good christians without the bible coming too close. oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living god. yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the new testament.   

blind faith ... really?

as christians our lives are shaped by how we read the bible. this is  good if we read it as it was intended; it is bad if we read it as it was not intended. 

for example, consider hebrews 11:1 ..."now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." this passage is a classic text for the belief that for faith to be real, it must be blind. in other words, how can you have faith if you are certain about the object of your faith? for many, faith by its very nature is uncertain.

we talk about faith in jesus and say, "you just have to believe it even when it doesn't make sense." "if you had all of the answers, it would not be faith." and so on ...  does this mean that those who actually walked and talked with jesus did not have faith because they were too certain of who he was, because jesus gave them the answers?

i don't think so ... one reason people end up thinking this way is that they confuse how the word "faith" is used in american culture with "faith" as it is used in the bible. 

faith in our culture is about believing something when everything you feel and know says you should not believe it. biblical faith, however, is different. it has 3 components: 1) understanding the content of the christian faith, 2) trust and 3) mental acceptance of a truth.  what this means is that biblical faith involves placing trust in what you have reason to believe is true.

faith is not a blind, irrational leap into the dark. faith is, as the bible says, "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." for you to be "sure" and "certain," your faith must be based on the understanding and personal experience of jesus and his mission.  

when someone says that you "need more faith," they are saying that you must close your eyes and ignore the circumstances. when  jesus says that you "need more faith," he is saying that you must open your eyes and see him in the circumstances. 

the more we see him at work in our lives, the more we will see our faith shape our lives.