How I Tried To Get Biblically Intelligent and Went Insane in the Process

I'm reading a book I recently purchased from the bookstore. It's about two best friends who leave everything that's dear to them, and head to Mexico on horseback. It's set in the early 1900's in the Texas Valley, and John Grady - the son of the ranch owner who's just died - is determined that if he can't stay on the ranch, he's gonna go find some horses to break in Mexico. His best friend Rawlins is all in, and their adventure begins.

The other book I've been reading forever - the Bible - is full of adventure as well. It's full of people leaving everything to embark on a new journey. It's full of passion, risk, danger, and romance.

As I read the forementioned book, I'm not bugged with the constant questions of, "Is it true? What was the author trying to say? What was going on in the world at the time? What did that sentence mean to the audience (which is me and whoever else has ever read the book)?"

Yet, every once in awhile there's this tendency when reading the Bible, to stop reading it as I would a great novel. There's this voice inside of me that says, "Jon, you've been doing real good. You need to step it up though and get intelligent."

So, for the last few weeks this voice has been getting louder and louder. I started getting "smart." I started doing research, and reading commentaries, and using Bible dictionaries, and reading Greek and Hebrew, and using thesauruses, and the list goes on and on and on.

It came to a head this weekend.

I sat in my recliner for about fifteen hours straight, trying to find the perfect, most flawless method of studying the Bible. I Googled, and typed, and took notes, and watched slideshows, and read excerpts, and wrote down questions to ask myself, and learned about inductive Bible study, and learned that the only way to really know what the author is trying to say is to interview him or her.

I was insanely trying to find perfect formula that I could plug a scripture into and come out with a workable application - a principle by which to live by.

I was getting pissed - at the Bible, at the authors, at all those Bible school professors who said there was only one way to study scripture, at myself for going down the rabbit hole one more time.

The more intelligent I got, the less inspired I became. Hmmm.

Good, formulaic, systematic study works great for people who are willing to put in the hours, days, and months to find the answers they're looking for. But, here's the problem.

No matter how much effort, time, and energy I put into finding exactly what the author meant - what the motives were, what he/she was trying to teach the audience - it's impossible to know what the author's motives were, especially when it was around 30 A.D.

I'm not the kind of person who finds life in putting hours of study into coming close.

I need to dumb myself down again. I need to read it like I'm reading All the Pretty Horses - inspired, excited, and wondering what's gonna happen next.

And, another point that I lost sight of the last few months:

The Bible has to be accessible to everyone, even when they pick it up for their first time. Their are scholars and teachers out there who say that there's only one way, one method, and one interpretation of the scriptures. The problem is - that way, that method, and that interpretation require the skills of a forensics expert. And, most of us just aren't wired like that.

If the Bible is accessible to all, then there has to be freedom to read it like we would an awesome novel.

The quest for knowledge and intelligence can easily substitute the childlike wonder that comes with sitting on a porch and reading as if it were the first time. When I read it like a child, I talk about it as if I don't know anything. And usually, it's those conversations that light my mind on fire and inspire the minds around me. It's the wonder, not the intelligence, that captivates me to talk about what the Bible says.

Hopefully, by the morning, I'm dumb again.