Pages: 325-337
They love the Lord’s teachings, and they think about those teachings day and night...I think about your orders and study your ways...How I love your teachings! I think about them all day long. Psalm 1:2, 119:15, 97
This morning, I continued with John Piper's Reading the Bible Supernaturally: Seeing and Savoring the Glory of God in Scripture, continuing with Part 3 The Natural Act of Reading the Bible Supernaturally, chapter twenty-three: The Power of Patience and Aggressive Attentiveness. Here, Piper starts to unpack a recommendation that in our goal of reading the Bible naturally, we "form the habit, and develop the patience, to look longer and more carefully than you ever have." He urges us to read actively vs passively as we become engaged and more alert. He shares colorful stories of how scholars urged him to "look, look, look" at the subject of his study. He states that "[t]he barrier to seeing the riches of the Scriptures is not owing to the act that more people don't know Greek and Hebrew, but that more people don't have the patience to look, look, look." This is described as a costly effort but one that yields immense results. Piper quotes a Harvard art history professor - Jennifer Roberts - who recommends that we "develop the patience to 'decelerate' and 'immerse' [ourselves] in attention...[as] patience becomes an active and positive cognitive state...now it is a form of control over the tempo of contemporary life that otherwise controls us. Patience no longer connotes disempowerment-perhaps now patience is power."
More on this topic as Piper continues to unpack this topic in the next chapter tomorrow...
Comment and discuss this topic here.
My Prayer: Lord Jesus, Your teachings, Your orders, Your ways, Your Word - all worthy of my full attention, and constant meditation - I seek Your glory in Your word and I seek to both see and savor it - to be glorified by it and of course to worship and please You with my life. I know I exist to glorify You and I know You love me and saved me. Thank You Jesus! I am not deserving of such love and to be saved - it is only through Your grace. My sin continues. I too often seek my own comfort yet You call me out of my comfort. Please forgive me Jesus! Help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You. Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me. Help me grow in my faith. Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength. Please heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo. Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior. Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin. Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others. Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for myself today and every day.
