Which of the following are similar to the ways you've served Christ in your family? [check all that apply]
• Taught your kids to see God's glory in nature
• Washed the dishes without being asked
• Played a board game with your kids
• Encouraged your wife to finish her master's degree
• Attended a child's open house at school
• Worked fewer hours to be with your family
• Set an example of a godly prayer life for your children
• Held a crying child
• Swung on the tire swing with your daughter
• Told your wife why you're still in love with her
• Told your son he's got what it takes
• Coached soccer
• Let you child correct you now and then
• Fixed the vacuum cleaner
• Taught your sons to ride a bike
• Listened patiently to a complaint of your wife
• Taped your child's artwork to your office wall
• Admitted to your kids that you were wrong
• Told your children how Christ entered your life
• Cleaned up vomit
• Taught your children to love books
• Been romantic without expecting sex
• Told your daughter she's smart/beautiful
• Set standards for your kids and stuck to them
• Dealt graciously with a busybody neighbor
• Peeled carrots
• Watched movies together
Direct Connect Theme of the Week: Beyond Book Learning Tuesday, October 5, 2004
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Men of IntegritySeptember/October 2004Direct ConnectTheme of the Week: Beyond Book LearningTuesday, October 575
Key Bible Verse: I listen carefully to what God the Lord is saying, for he speaks peace to his people, his faithful ones (Psalm 85:8). Bonus Reading:Psalm 119:13–16
Most pastors and teachers I know are dismayed by the marginal place of the Bible among those under their care. They consider it essential to guide the adults and children in their sanctuaries and classrooms not only to read the Bible but to read it rightly. They embrace this work, but find it unendingly difficult.
This seems exceedingly odd, for the Bible wasn't written for a highly educated upper class. It's not a difficult book that only "smart" people can get. In fact, most of the first "readers" of the Bible couldn't read. They were stonemasons, housewives, grapepickers, and fishermen who listened to it being read by a rare one in the community who could read. This was not a book to be studied at a schoolroom desk; it was to be listened to and lived. This book wasn't valued because it held tons of information to be looked up; it formed their understanding of who they were and who God is.
As they listened, they ex-perienced the words personally. Their lives were formed in trust and love, hope and obedience. They didn't know more, they became more. [continued 10/6]
—Eugene Peterson in Reading the Bible for the Love of God
My Response: How could my Bible reading be skewed by reliance on footnotes and commentaries?
Thought to Apply: When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is talking to me, and about me."
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