The art of rereading

     Today’s world is a world that pushes people to keep on learning if they want to succeed. To keep on learning requires acquiring new ideas and skills. And to acquire these new ideas and skills one must learn to study. Now the spiritual discipline of study is not to acquire new skills but rather it meant to transform your very mind. Foster writes, “The purpose of the Spiritual Disciplines is the total transformation of the person. They aim at replacing old destructive habits of thought with new life-giving habits. Nowhere is this purpose more clearly seen than in the discipline of study” (62). 

     So what is study you might be asking. The Disciple of study is specific kind of experience which carefully gives attention to reality so that the mind is enables to move in a certain direction. However, study is different from mediation. Mediation is devotional while study is analytical. Foster points out that there are four steps involved in study. They are: repetition, concentration, comprehension, and reflection. Although I would add a fifth step which is humility because without it something you have read a hundred times will not yield anything new. 

     So for this week’s practice of study, my professor challenge us to read a very familiar Scripture passage, 1 Corinthians 13 which reads:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

     But she didn’t challenge us to read it just once a day but twice. Now after the challenge was given I must confess that I didn’t have a spirit of humility. In fact I had a spirit of arrogance. I thought I knew exactly what this passage was talking about. I mean it is all about love right? 

     So I started off reading the passage twice day but by day two or so my spirit of arrogance had worn off. I began to reflect on phrases such as love is not self-seeking, love never fails, love always perseveres. And throughout my day I would find my thinking about such phrases and asking myself what do they mean. 

     The easy answer would always come to mind, Paul is describing love. But I knew there had to be a deeper answer. I also began to notice that the qualities that describe love are listed in a pattern: two qualities, then three qualities, then four, then two, and then four. This pattern appears to emphasize that the phrase love never fails. A new thought occurred to me, what does it really mean that love never fails? I kept on pondering such a thought.

     Then the other night as I was reading the passage again a deeper meaning occurred to me. The qualities of love where all qualities that Jesus had. It was so simple yet profound. And in that moment, I grasp just how great and grand the death and resurrection of Jesus truly was. His love, the true love, will never fail even when my love fails. What an awesome encouragement. 

     I am then remind why the discipline of study is so important. It doesn’t just have the power to transform my mind but it shows that Scripture is active and alive and I am reminded of passages such as 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.