Getting a Grip on Scripture

I used to joke with my students that “you don’t have to be mean to be a teacher, but it helps.” I would use that line whenever I had to insist they do something they didn’t want to do (which was, of course, often). I called on that mean streak once when I used a volunteer to help me with an object lesson on how to “get a grip” on Scripture.

Justin Gravitt is a name that will be familiar to regular readers of the Discipleship Weekly, as I’ve often featured his blog posts. Justin is serving as a discipleship coach for some PPC leaders. In one of my recent meetings with him, he said something that has been quietly unfolding in my mind ever since. He said that the key component for our engagement with the Bible is not necessarily Scripture memorization… or Bible study… or any other particular method for engaging the Bible.

The key is not how we engage Scripture but that we regularly engage Scripture. For some people, like Justin, the best way to engage Scripture is by memorizing it. Justin commits key verses to memory and often recalls and uses them in our conversations.

But for other people, it’s Bible study. Justin told me he knows some people who study the Bible almost as a hobby. They spend hours in the Scripture because they love God’s Word, and they love to study it.

How we engage God’s Word might vary from one person to another, depending on life circumstances and personal gifting and passions, but it is vital that our engagement with Scripture be regular and not happenstance.

And yet we know it’s not quite so simple. It is possible for us to hear solid preaching and teaching and read our Bibles every day and even commit it to memory without engaging it in our hearts.

We might be tempted to think that knowing God’s Word is all that is necessary for spiritual growth.

But then there are the Pharisees…

The Pharisees had committed vast portions of Scripture to memory and spent countless hours discussing and parsing out the intricacies and nuances of the text. Yet when they met God’s final Word to man – the man Jesus, God in human form – they failed to recognize him and opposed him throughout his time on earth.

So there must be something more to engaging Scripture than simply knowing it. As well as the Pharisees knew the Bible, somehow they failed to get a grip on Scripture. Or, to put it more precisely, the Scriptures never got a grip on them.

Which brings us to my object lesson for my students on getting a grip on Scripture. Your own hand, with its four fingers and one thumb, serves as a vivid illustration. One time when I explained this “hand illustration” to my class, I had a boy – a strong boy with a strong personality, chosen specially for this illustration – stand in front of the class holding a heavy a large Bible with one hand, without using his thumb. The more machismo, the better.

Then I went on to explain how to “get a grip” on the Scriptures.

“Your pinky,” I told my students, “is hearing God’s Word, as we do in church in hearing good preaching and teaching.” I know that many of our people love sound biblical preaching and feast on the many excellent opportunities available on Christian radio or in podcasts.

I went on: “The ring finger is reading God’s Word. We not only hear other people talk about the Bible, we read it for ourselves.

“The next finger is studying God’s Word, which takes us past a superficial reading into deep reading for lasting understanding.

“The index finger is very important. It is meditating on God’s Word, thinking deeply about what it means and how it might apply to your life.”

I took some time to elaborate on the significance of each of the fingers. Every now and then I would check with my brave volunteer, to see how he was doing holding a large Bible with one hand without using his thumb.

By now the muscles in his forearm were beginning to burn. Of course his macho pride wouldn’t permit him to show any emotion on his face, but everyone was beginning to understand, especially the boy holding the Bible, that the thumb would be crucial in getting a grip on Scripture.

“The thumb,” I said, “is the most important digit in this illustration. The thumb represents applying what I learn, putting God’s Word into practice in my daily life. Without the thumb, it’s impossible to get a good grip on Scripture, and it’s impossible for the Scripture to get a grip on my life.”

Here I would tell my suffering volunteer that he could now use his thumb to grasp the book. He would sigh with relief at the difference it made to use his thumb.

Just so, we cannot get a good grip on God’s Word – and it can’t get a grip on our lives – until we ask ourselves that all-important question whenever we engage Scripture: So what? Until we’ve contemplated what difference the truth of God’s Word might make in our lives and until we’ve taken actual steps of obedience, our grip on Scripture is tenuous and uncertain… and merely theoretical.

Regardless of how and how often I interact with Scripture, I haven’t fully engaged it until I get a grip on it by obeying it. Until I put into practice what I learn from God’s Word, I am merely storing up insights the way a man might collect comic books or baseball cards. If I am collecting biblical insights without applying them to my life, I am deceiving myself, and my spiritual growth is stunted.

James warns us about this self-defeating way of engaging Scripture: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22, ESV).

I don’t want to be that guy, the man who thinks his vast and growing collection of biblical knowledge means he’s growing spiritually, when he is really only deceiving himself. I want to get a firm grip on God’s Word by letting His Word get a grip on my life: I want to be doer of the Word and not a hearer only.