The fruit of right living

When my wife and I relocated recently from one state to another and one house to another, the happiest surprises lay in the rediscovery of books and pictures we had lived with for decades but somehow lost track of.  

Pictures, especially oil paintings, brought most enrichment, simply because we saw them—literally—in a new light! “Is that really one of ours?” “Are those Cape mountains overlooking Stellenbosch actually so blue?” Or, “Those fall colors are stunning!”

Books tend to hide away more easily—and it takes us longer to get reaquainted. You try to remember what first grabbed your interest, and when last you were inspired by a passage in it. You read a bit here, and lose yourself in a paragraph there. Including the Bibles—in all their versions and ages.

Our oldest Bible rests alongside a dozen commentaries, poetry collections, and devotionals. It’s a black leather-bound book that’s a mere sixty years old but holding together well. As I picked it up and gently dusted its soft, scarred cover, I was reminded of that well-loved saying, “A Bible that’s falling apart invariably belongs to someone who isn’t.”

It’s the sort of remark I’d expect from someone like Jen Wilkin—mother, author, teacher, and staunch supporter of Bible study as the solution to most of people’s frustrations and instabilities.

        In her columns for Christianity Today, Wilkin frequently recommends more attention to reading and rereading of the Scriptures. She says people underestimate the effectiveness of repetitive reading in training us to follow the meaning of a text.

It helps us identify ideas, names, locations, images, rhythms, or phrases until we begin to see structures and patterns emerge. She adds: “We never reach the end of its usefulness, because on each reading, new treasures are yielded from the text.”

Then Wilkin suggests that one of the best—and most neglected—approaches to Bible study is to read a book of the Bible from start to finish, without attempting to analyze or apply it. And then read it again. And again.

Repetitive Bible reading also features in Wilkin’s thoughts on meditation, both mystical and Christian; and she points to what I find to be a helpful distinction.

She suggests that whereas mystical meditation calls for a quiet emptying of the mind to relieve various forms of distress, confusion, or anxiety, Christian meditation leads to a filling of the mind for the purpose of acting. It involves study, reflection, and rumination.

Unlike mystical meditation, says Wilkin, Christian meditation sees understanding as the product of thinking about what is virtuous (Philippians 4:8). It’s not an end in itself but is intended to yield the fruit of right living.

And the idea of repetition also slips into the book of Joshua in which God says, “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it“(1:8 NRSV).

        No argument there; and plenty of reading to be done!