An Obstacle to Reading the Bible No One Talks About

Christians are supposed to read their Bibles. They are supposed to listen to Scriptures read in public worship by a minister called to speak to them for God, but they should also augment this by their own regular reading.

An advantage to hearing someone else read the text is that he might be able to explain it better than what you would get reading on your own.

Discipline Is Overrated: It’s Not an Alternative to Motivation

Some form of “Discipline > Motivation” is a perennial feature of “self-improvement” and especially “fitness journey” social media. It is not as helpful as as it is pumped up to be.

It is not helpful because people think of “discipline” as some version of “will power” or a problematic conception of “self-control.” The narrative is:

I should do a thing.
I don’t want to do the thing.
But because I should do the thing I force myself to do the thing despite my lack of motivation.

No one does this for any real length of time. It is a boastful myth. It gives credit to the person for his success as if he conquered an unwilling person and forced him to be his slave. We could even attach Bible verses to this like: “But I discipline my body and keep it under control” (1 Corinthians 9:27a). That the ESV. The footnote gives a more literal translation: “I pummel my body and make it a slave.”

So why do I object to the narrative?

Wisdom, “Fitness,” and Moralism

Recently, I have run into a lot of “Christian” exhortations on social media for people to lose weight and “get fit.” I use quotation marks around Christian, because, in some cases, they are simply outright mockery about physical appearance (but not all are so bad).

The reigning moralisms about healthy (“moderate”) food intake are unhelpful for either virtue or health. There is no intuitive difference between wanting to eat for whatever reason, and being “really” hungry. There is no internal signal that one has eaten “enough” and one should now abstain. There is no sensory guidance that one can use will power to follow or that one can ignore for the sake of culinary desire. God made food. We like to eat food. And, apart from some basic knowledge of biology and math, no one can intuit how much is too much. (Or rather “too much” [Proverbs 25:16] is already probably far more than is healthy on a regular basis. One could avoid that extreme and still not be “healthy” enough.)

Single-Model Robots Need Wisdom

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”
1 Corinthians 12:14–21 ESV

This is a profound statement about diversity and unity in the church. It has obvious application to wider human society.

But it is also counter-intuitive. We have been so thoroughly immersed in the imagery that we don’t notice that it portrays human life and human society as almost the opposite of the way it appears.

Encouragement Really Strengthens

And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
1 Samuel 30:6 ESV

The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, and good news refreshes the bones.
Proverbs 15:30 ESV

The line between thinking and physically performing is simpler to define in theory than detect in reality. It is easy to think one can separate physical weakness from discouragement, but the way the Bible speaks of strengthening ourselves leads to questions about such a separation.

Wear What You Want… and Experience the Consequences

Last week I was led to this article, entitled “The Elder’s Attire,” about dress for worship and other church functions by ministers and other church rulers.

It was a good article. But I wonder about the category of “moral concern” as it is contrasted with “a matter of aesthetic tastes.”

Men used to dress more formally than they do today. This can be seen by looking at older photos of men on airplanes and in the classroom. Yet it is often assumed today that how we dress is of no moral concern and is purely a matter of aesthetic tastes. But is this the case? Or do cultural expectations of attire have roots in something deeper.

The writer uses some wise restraint in making a case that we should dress more formally for some events and situations. But I was left uncertain what the relationship is between “moral” and “aesthetic.” I don’t have anything definitive to say about how to formulate the relationship between them in this post.

But I have some remarks that might be helpful, especially to those who want to insist that “aesthetic tastes” must be adiaphara.

How to Effectively Pray for Others to Behave Better

1. Think of all the people you want to behave better. Think of all the people you know who you want to be better husbands or fathers or wives or mothers or employees or students or managers of their time or money or emotions. You want them to be better Christians who show greater wisdom and more consistent character. Ones who empower themselves and are trustworthy to all those around them rather than people who sabotage themselves and are unreliable. People who honor God in their conduct rather than shame Him.

Imitation Is Not Inauthentic

In my opinion, Christians often emphasize several things that all tend to lead to a basic problem. They stress the importance of “authenticity.” Or they focus on a need for “a change of heart.” Or they say that one’s Christian commitment must “come from within.” I am sure they use many other phrases of a similar import.

The problem that they lead to is negligence or sloth. If God tells you to change your behavior and you wait for your inner attitude to change then you are refusing to heed God’s will.

Just in Case that Resolution to Read the Bible in a Year doesn’t stick…

Far be it from me to disparage a New Years resolution, especially one so ennobling as the resolve to increase one’s own Bible literacy. I know that, by offering a way to salvage a failure, it is theoretically possible I might make the failure more likely in some cases. But I think it is far more likely that there are many who have quit sometime in March, or in Numbers, whichever came first.

I write this post because I think that people who read the whole Bible every four years are better off than people who read less than half the Pentateuch in the first quarter of every year.

Training Or a Disguised Hero Battle: Two Options for Perspective

In my last post, I think I vacillated between two perspectives on one’s life. That isn’t a problem because neither perspective completely explains our experience. But both are roughly accurate and helpful.

So let me more clear about them: