Memorize

Really, this is for Christians. If you are not, you are still most welcome to read on.

Tonight, I had a conversation with a fellow believer who said he that while having a conversation with another believer, that man couldn't figure out the big deal with memorizing verses or chapters in the Bible. My jaw slacked. Then my eyebrows raised. This would be like someone who was committed to fitness eschewing cardio.

I didn't know what to say.

John Piper makes clear in this wonderful video that Bible memorization is not commanded in Scripture. Well, okay. It is for the most part assumed as needful:

"I have stored your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." (Psalm 119:11)

Considering most could not afford to have a "Bible" at their disposal during Old and New Testament times, Bible memorization became a normal Christian discipline. Help the poor. Memorize God's word.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

But memorizing God's word has fallen out of vogue. We have an app, after all. I can listen to it on my way to work and one and a half times speed. Nice, but for the one who has toiled to bring God's word deep into their soul, wrestling with that's and which's, they would contend that to struggle with a passage is to better understand God and his grandeur because they better understand that which he has spoken.

So what? I want to encourage you to memorize. AND I want you to encourage me to continue to memorize. I DO NOT want you to memorize simply to memorize. I want you to memorize to:

• Know and love your Savior with a hotter and deeper passion
• Ache for the holiness to which he calls you and to strive thereto
• Seek the Source of sanctifying wisdom given to man
• Be the saint he has gifted you to be in the Church
• Be nourished with the only food that will satisfy your soul
• See God as he has revealed himself in his word

To encourage folks in this endeavor, I have started a Facebook page: 1Chapter. If you would like to be apart of the encouragement that comes from having others spur you on to memorize God's word, let me know and I'll add you to the group. No cost. No gimmicks. From time to time we'll drop some encouragement onto the page to spur you in your journey. We'll provide links and ideas to help you memorize. 

Last June, I encouraged folks to take the next two months and memorize one chapter of God's word. Here we go again. Between now and Thanksgiving you have three months. You can do it. One chapter.

Join the page and let me know your chapter. We can encourage one another.

Perspectives

We spent the day at the lake yesterday. My younger daughter, a young lady who oozes patience and delights in any and every event that is good, began digging in the sand. At first I thought she was just building pyramids. No. It was a tunnel she was excavating. 

After a time of digging, my elder daughter joined in the excavation.

Soon they connected the two holes and a few scoopfuls later, got it deep enough to find moisture. Not being content with damp, they began to tote water in 16-ounce intervals from the lake to the tunnel, tagging-out between digging and toting with each bottle-full. During one of the trips, the eldest inadvertently created a skylight in the tunnel.

An aerial shot (no drones)

My son, whose foot you can see in the above photo, then entered the picture lowering his phone into the tunnel to see what he could see. What he saw? Magic.

Extraordinary beauty in extraordinary places. Who'd have thought? All because a young woman began digging a hole on a beach.

Blade 32

Callsigns used by USAF aircraft are a wonder of originality and irony. Some make sense ("Blade" for the T-6, a propeller-driven pilot training aircraft at Sheppard AFB) while others will leave you scratching your head (AWOL for the T-38's at the now closed Williams AFB). Some reference the squadron ("Hound," the callsign of the commander of 524th Fighter Squadron, "The Hounds of Heaven") and in others the base is acknownledged ("Shepp" the cross-country callsign for T-6's at Sheppard AFB).

There's another part to the callsign. A number. That number is usually two digits. To external agencies, I was Scud 01, but within the flight I was simply Scud 1.

As I have taught now in the T-6 simulator for the past seven and a half years, the callsign is pretty benign. Blade for missions where the student is with an instructor, Turbo if solo, Lucky if it's his very first solo, and Ally, Shepp, Dicey or Madcat if the mission is off-station. Really, there is little I can do to spice up the callsign; it is what it is.

But unbeknownst to all of my students, every callsign I use contains an Easter egg. Today was the last time my student will be "Blade 31." You see, my student's have been Blade 31, Turbo 31, Lucky 31, etc. for the past year. Tomorrow my student will be "Blade 32" or "Turbo 32." They will have the 32 suffix to their callsign for the next year when the have a mission with me. Why?

Tomorrow my bride and I will have been married for 32 years.

Each time I write "Blade 31" or "Blade 32" on the whiteboard, I am reminded of the commitment I made 32 years ago, I am reminded of the one who has invested so much that I might serve our nation for 24 years and continue serving our country by teaching our nation's newest pilots what it means to be a military aviator.

Without the sacrifice, investment and love of that treasure, there would be no "Blade 32." When I write "Blade 32" on the whiteboard to prepare for the simulator mission, I thank God for how he has blessed me, and I think of my precious bride.

I love you, babe.

Your pastor is boring. Now what?

Imagine visiting a church for the first time and during the sermon, the pastor clings to his manuscript like a drowning child to a life preserver.

Imagine that when the pastor at last does look up from his papers he stares at the back wall as he drones on in a painful monotony.

Imagine his rigid hands never rising from the papers, no gestures to be seen.

Imagine a pastoral professional assessing this delivery as perhaps the “most mediocre the Church has ever known.”

Would it matter to you that he handled God’s word with care, preached it with accuracy and drew applications relevant to your lot in life, or would you leave never to return?

In a culture nursed on the shaky-cam and bingeing any program at any time in any location, the average Christian will look for a pastor to grab their attention and compel them with stories and anecdotes. The pastor must have a flare for theatrics, for mastering the pregnant pause, and convicting the soul with mere vocal inflection or eyebrow twitch.

And thus, most Christians would have passed on Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest preachers history has known. All of the above descriptors of the desperately dull pastor are descriptors of Edwards' manner of preaching.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a pastor having compelling oratory and being able to command an audience with gesture and expression, but have these become paramount? If so, we would have passed on the apostle Paul, too.

PAUL

Paul told the Corinthian church that he thought little of his speaking skills (2 Corinthians 11:6), and he thought his preaching to them to be dull of speech, weak, and missing the persuasion and nuance the Greeks had come to expect (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). Paul! His power was not in his manner but his message. The power of the gospel.

Consider how the Berean church received this middling orator. Luke tells us, “They received the word with all eagerness.” Picture a puppy when its master approaches with his dog dish. Tail a-wag, bounding its front paws off of the floor. Why did the Berean’s receive the word in this manner? Luke explained, “They were more noble” than the Thessalonians..

THE NOBLE CHRISTIAN

Someone who is noble is thoughtful and discerning, not rash in their conclusions, and sober and temperate with their emotions and attitudes.

When we are about to hear a sermon on Sunday, are we expectant and eager knowing that we are about to feed upon the good food of God’s word? Or do we sit like a movie critic, pen in hand, waiting to shred the the actor? What we glean from the Berean example is that how God's preached word affects us depends upon us. Jesus said the same thing in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23). The problem lies not with the seed (the word of God) nor with the sowing of the farmer (the delivery of the good word), but the reason the seed does not take root is a problem in the heart of the hearer.

WHAT CAN I DO?

How do I prepare myself to hear the word? Here are a few suggestions.

Repent of a critical heart. Through the internet we can hear great preachers preach great sermons 24/7, and then on Sunday, we expect our pastor to live up to MacArthur, Piper, Chandler, and Evans? That’s like a husband expecting his wife to look like a super model after three children and thirty years of marriage. Such expectations are unfair. God will use the weakest vessels to most exalt his word and himself. Such a critical heart has no place in the Christian.

Rejoice in the pastor God’s provided. If your pastor strives to teach what God’s word says with accuracy and to apply that truth to the situations of our day, and if God is glorified and Christ is manifest within the preaching, you have much for which to be thankful. Praise God for such a man.

Pray for your pastor. Preparing for a sermon is a rigorous endeavor. God suggests that many ought not desire to do it because of the great responsibility to not dishonor God and his word (James 3:1). 

• Pray for him throughout the week during his time of preparation that such times would be fruitful for him and that he would be free from distraction. 
• Pray for him on the morning of the sermon that he might honor God with the delivery of his word.

Be expectant. If a pastor does nothing more than read God’s word, what a great feast you will find therein. If he goes on to explain and apply that word, he has set for you a rich table indeed. The Christian who listens to God’s word proclaimed with a Berean eagerness and expectation will find much for which to glorify God and much to apply to their lives.

Be biblical. The Bereans scoured Scripture. Liking or not liking a sermon can be equally shallow if you have no idea if it corresponded to God’s word. Open your Bible. Follow along. Take notes. Go back later in the day or during the next week to rethink on the teaching and track down some of the cross references or things that came to mind to compare and contrast within God’s word. This is part of discernment and spiritual nobility.

Provide feedback. “Great sermon, pastor,” will bounce off of him on Sunday morning like the buzz of the fluorescent lights. It’s expected. A note during the week on how God used his preaching in your life will be like a cup of cold water after toiling in the yard on an August afternoon. There may even be a time to bring up something you did not understand or that you felt was unclear in the message. Most pastors worth their salt would like to know if they erred or were hazy on a particular point. Please, be gracious here. Consistently critical feedback from you will wear upon him like the blows of a boxer.

Perhaps if we do these things, we will be considered “noble” Christians as well, the kind of church member to which any pastor would love to preach.