Recently, I was doing some research on the history of colleges associated with our spiritual brotherhood, and I found this list of expectations that James Harding had for each student who passed through the doors of the old Lipscomb College (founded by David Lipscomb and James Harding, two titans of the faith in their day).

Concerning the expectations, Harding wrote:

  1. We should like for every student who goes forth from the school to be able to name the books of the Bible in order, to give a brief outline of the contents of each book, and then taking each book chapter by chapter, to give a comprehensive synopsis of its contents.
  2. We should like for every graduate to be able to repeat from memory every prayer, every speech, and every parable of the New Testament in both the English and Greek tongues.
  3. We study the characters of the Bible, and we study topics, both Biblical and not: The creation, new creation, the fall, depravity, the work of the Holy Spirit, predestination, election, conversion, baptism, infant membership, the Sabbath, the Lord’s day, Lord’s supper, faith, hope, love, repentance, change of heart, and so on.
  4. Students are required to memorize Scripture daily, both in English and Greek.
  5. The young men are exercised in delivering orations and conducting debates.

That’s a pretty daunting list, in my opinion. I can give you the books of the Bible in order, and I think I can summarize each book, but chapter by chapter? Yeesh. Memorize every prayer, speech, and parable? I can’t do that in English, much less in Greek. If I wanted to, however, I know exactly where I would begin: I would begin by reading and re-reading the Bible, over and over, until its words were as familiar to me as my phone number or the names of my children.

Earlier this month we were blessed to have Dean Fugett talk to us about the Word of God. He said in passing how he reads through the New Testament every month. It’s been heartening to hear so many of our members take up a similar challenge, to read through the NT every month. If that’s you then by now you’re maybe about a third or so of the way through the task: Keep it up!

Having said that, Dean Fugett does not just read the Bible daily. Fugett studies his Bible daily. He digs into the scripture, studies meaning, examines the relationships between texts, and meditates/prays over the text he studies. The difference between reading the Bible every day and studying it every day is the difference between eating baby food from a jar and a steak dinner from the Tamale Factory (Hebrews 5:12-14).

I just want to be clear: I’m not discouraging any of you who are doing the daily reading challenge. I have enjoyed reading your comments about it as it’s gone on. You have my full encouragement because a general understanding of the Bible begins with reading it! How could I ever discourage that! I only want to emphasis the importance of studying the text too. You might not be able to study the whole Bible (or even the New Testament) in a single month, but that’s okay. Right now you’re reading it. Great. Don’t stop there. After you’ve read it through, switch to a slower, more methodical study of the Scripture. You might only ever get through a single book in a month. Fine. It might take you the rest of your life to study the Bible. Great. What a way to spend a life!

~ Matthew