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Permalink Reply by Lorne Rogers on 10th mo. 11, 2013 at 7:16am

The best way to learn anything is to teach it to someone else.

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Permalink Reply by William F Rushby on 10th mo. 11, 2013 at 7:40am

When I saw the name "Lorne", I said to myself  "here is a Canadian".  And I got it right!  My mother's father was from New Brunswick, and my paternal grandparents lived in Montreal for three years after they emigrated from the UK.

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Permalink Reply by William F Rushby on 10th mo. 11, 2013 at 7:52am

Hello, Forrest!  I have always found that I did best as a Bible student when my Bible study was part of a group discipline.

My wife grew up in a traditionalist Conservative Friends' family; they read the Bible as a part of their daily devotions.  Darlene wanted us to do the same, and I regret that I was not more diligent about doing so.

I do not mean to suggest that Bible reading and Bible study are to be equated.  We really need both!

I read the memorial of an Indiana Quaker woman in *The Friend* several years ago.  She was lax about Bible reading.  Her husband, on the other hand, came under increasing concern to have a family reading on a regular basis.  She resisted!  He read anyway, in a loud voice when necessary to drown out her "static".  A few years later, he died.  In remorse, she became a regular reader herself, and was subsequently acknowledged as a minister.

 

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 10th mo. 11, 2013 at 2:06pm

Maybe it's like being a naked mole rat? -- The family sits around the burrow while one member digs a long tunnel through the hard desert soil toward the nearest root. The sound of digging stops; another member of the family runs into the tunnel, grabs his sibling's tail and hauls him back for rest, while someone else jumps in and digs. (It works, in that kind of environment.)

I don't know how much of this is "teaching and learning"; everything you know can help but groups where someone has too strong an attachment to 'This is what we're supposed to find" -- can be deadly.

Sometimes I do find things out by trying to explain them -- but it works a lot better if I also get to be among the explainees!

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 10th mo. 15, 2013 at 10:18am

I have and do read the bible three different ways.  In the beginning I read it two different ways and then along the way after reading  some Madam Guyon I added the third.  The first was to read it as a whole to see how the various stories fit together while the second was to understand the stories themselves.  The third was to use it as part of my prayer life.  All three have been important at various times in my walk.  In the beginning I had various versions I used for different purposes.  Originally I read a "living bible"  and the Bible Society's "Good News for Modern Man" versions to get through the whole bible.  I kept them all over the house including of course the bathroom.  I took a pocket new testament with Psalms with me everywhere I went during the day and read it at lunch and every time I had to wait for someone or something.  By the way during this time I stopped reading the newspaper except on Sundays.  After I read the bible through the first time I did the ABS's read the bible in a year program for a few years and have done that a lot on and off since.  Especially when I get a new version to read such as The Message and the New English Revised version.  And when I feel the need for His presence I pull out the bible and start reading where I'm led until I have an unexplainable "sense", call it what you will, and just sit there.  Other times when confronted with lack of peace I seek out a space and cry out for answers throwing out what I think are applicable bible verses such as " How can two walk together unless they agree" only to have other verses such as "love is patient, love is kind" flow out of some deep place in my being.  So while my reading of the Bible is not consistent, and no where near as constant as it was when I was trying to understand my relationship with the Divine, I believe I have absorbed it in such a way that I can say that I no longer walk alone.

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 10th mo. 16, 2013 at 1:01pm

Rudy, it was a long time ago but I believe it was "Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ".  What i got out of it was learning to read the bible in a focused manner that would allow me to detect a sense that there was someone with me.  Similar to the feeling you get when you sense someone is staring at you or someone is reading over your shoulder or has just entered a room you had to yourself.  Then when I got that sense I would try to linger there.  In the beginning just the attempt to linger there would result in losing that feeling.  It's the feeling you probably get if your Sunday worship results in a "gathered" meeting.  However, it's not the feeling you get when you get uplifted by great worship songs.  It's really like floating in a pool of silence.

As you can see attempts at explaining it are difficult which is why I am a Quaker.  The Spiritual life has to be experienced and can not be adequately explained.

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Permalink Reply by Susann on 10th mo. 16, 2013 at 3:33pm

Hello Forrest,

 I've also had this experience when reading the Bible. It's as if the Bible (or parts of it at least) is an empty container that you, as the reader, fill up with the idea and the experiences that you bring to the table (or the book). I read a bit, and dozens of associations and ideas and "yes buts" flood my mind. It might be helpful to read the Bible together with another person that brings a completely different set of ideas and associations with him or her. Looking at the Bible passage through the "lens" of this person's ideas and associations might expand my understanding of the passage.

Susann

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 10th mo. 16, 2013 at 7:31pm

Okay, I was having a hard time getting a grip on what James meant earlier about his 'prayer life' and now it fits well with

Anthony Bloom's story re how he stopped being an atheist.

Like most of us, I don't experience reading the Bible in quite that way. (I definitely do feel that God helps me with my 'What is this passage doing here?' questions -- but isn't necessarily providing Absolute Truth so much as realizations like: 'It will make more sense if you look at it this way.')

Personally I find the Bible both a help and an impediment: We aren't 1st Century Jews and we shouldn't try to be! But the Bible was God's way of explaining to them: what God has done with Creation and intends to do with us. It definitely doesn't mean what many people assume at first glance -- but it is what our spiritual ancestors believed they'd received via the same channels of Divine/human communication we have available.

So far as they misunderstood -- and the crucifixion of Jesus suggests pretty clearly there was something essential that most of this remarkable people really didn't get -- we, in principle, must be capable of the same kinds of distortion.

Failing to consult their Scriptures was clearly not the problem! But modern Friends seem to miss out on a lot that way.

----------------------

I agree that 'another person' (or persons) with 'a different set of ideas and associations' is extremely helpful for me seeing anything new in the Bible. I'm still much in need of such people on

http://kwakerskripturestudy.blogspot.com/ ! [Hint, hint!]

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 10th mo. 20, 2013 at 5:00pm

People have made great ministries out of trying to live just one passage.  So I would never minimize rereading a passage a thousand times.  If it's one of your favorite passages it must be speaking to you and in the end that's what it is all about.

I find that knowing where the stories fit allows me to understand the story better which helps me discern whether someone else's interpretation has any merit or not.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 10th mo. 21, 2013 at 12:18am

So maybe you should argue with Paul? I mean, he made Jesus acceptable to Hellenistic Romans, but I think some things definitely got lost in his adaptation. & while modern theologians used him to support absolute theological positions, basically he was saying things like: ~'From what I hear has been going on in your church, you need to keep in mind blah, blah, blah and blah!'

Having a woman go around with her hair down no longer suggests she's a hooker, these days -- Some details simply don't mean the same that they did to Paul and his contemporaries -- and later writers with different styles did trade on his reputation to sneak in their own takes on proper church organization & behavior.  If any of it edifies you, fine, and if it doesn't, it's like what old members often said about ministry in my Meeting: "Maybe that Message wasn't for you."

If some passage does feel like a Message for you to keep in mind, sure -- but I think the book as a whole deserves study & thought: In a world created by God -- what is this part of it, this patchwork of different accounts of God's purposes & intentions, doing here? What, for that matter, can we accept as conveying God's will for us? How to account for those other parts? Why do some passages speak to us, others not? How to describe the difference between them?

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Permalink Reply by Susan Jeffers on 10th mo. 22, 2013 at 5:29am

I'm the same way, Forrest -- were it not for the opportunity to reflect & discuss with other Friends, I seriously doubt I'd have been able to sustain my interest in Scripture.   In fact I really came to the Bible through Friends, wondering why and in what ways it was so important to the earlier generations, and wondering why and in what ways we pick and choose our favorite bits nowadays.  I've been blessed to be part of several Meetings that were willing to start a Bible Study group, or already had one...  And I've wondered about trying to start an online Quaker Bible Study group, but my health these days doesn't allow me much online time. 

" I seem to need other people to learn anything new from it."  indeed!

in fact I've learned to investigate that which f/Friends are "into" just so I can be sure of getting a conversation out of the deal...  e.g. f/Friends Larry & Ellie Clayton, and their longstanding interest in William Blake:

http://ramhornd.blogspot.com/

 

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