Failed Resolutions?

At this point of the year, you may have given up on your New Year’s Resolutions. For some it included working out more, talking with friends more, eliminating unnecessary spending, eliminating bad habits, etc. And, possibly for you, some resolved to read the Bible more often. You may have already found yourself a good Bible reading plan. There is a year long one, a three year long one, and some simply choose to try to read through it cover to cover but lose their steam once they get to Leviticus. (I have heard it called the “Leviticus Blues” in the past!)

So Here is a Thought Experiment…

The Bible sitting right next to me is 1140 pages long (872 pages for the Old Testament and 268 pages for the New Testament).

Suppose someone only hears a sermon/teaching about the same 10% of the New Testament (which would be 26.8 pages), would you say that person is more or less likely to know “the mind of Christ” or has a decent understanding of the Christian faith?

Well, if you only read the same 26.8 pages out of 1140 pages of the entire Bible, that is only 2.3% of the Bible.

Would you say that a person is more or less likely to know “the mind of Christ” or has a decent understanding of the Christian faith if they only know 2.3% of the Scriptures?

My pastor growing up told me that every pastor should move on from a church after 10 years. According to him, a pastor is likely to repeat the same lessons, themes, main ideas, passages after 10 years. Unless that pastor was actively reading outside of their comfort zone and challenging themselves to hear new perspectives rather than fortifying their already held beliefs/assumptions, it is difficult to keep growing if you keep hearing the same things for literally decades.

What about the other 97.7% of the Scriptures (if you only hear the same 26.8 pages of the New Testament)? What about the other 241.2 pages of the New Testament? What if those other passages are holding gold that completely changes the way you currently think and believe, in a good way? It is one thing to keep talking about passages in the New Testament (or Bible as a whole) that are consistent with the values of your community, it is a completely other things to study the passages that challenge the values of your community of faith…

So how about this… what if you went through with a highlighter and highlighted all the passages you have already studied and then made it your goal to gradually deep dive into all those passages that you have not heard about in a sermon or Bible study or series?

What If Everything Changes?

Wouldn’t that be great? If actually at the end of reading the Bible, you actually started to have more and more of the “mind of Christ”? You know, rather than the “mind of your pastor/professor/mentor that is well intentioned but still avoiding passages”?

What if you were to read the Bible, and come to find out that there are whole parts of it that you have not gleaned wisdom from? What if, by reading the Scriptures themselves, you end up “upgrading” how you understand your own faith?

Give it a shot, maybe it is just the change you have been looking for.