Sword Drill
Got your Bible? OK, quick, find the telling of the murder of Ammon (do you remember who killed him?)
Or how about an easier one, can you find the story of Samson or the story of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem?
What if your pastor said, “Find the place where it is said: ‘As for my sacrifical offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; and they shall return to Egypt. For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; so I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour her strongholds.’ ”
What, you say, you need the chapter and verse… or maybe even the book to find it?
Many people probably would need a good deal more time to find the stories of the Bible in this manner. Yet, we’re exceedingly swift to find book, chapter and verse of even the most obscure reference (even if we have no idea what it means or what the context is). So how did we become such excellent librarians (able to quickly find information) instead of people of the book (who know the chain of stories that link together our redemptive history)? For centuries students of the scriptures had to be able to locate a passage on a scroll without seeing anything but blocks and blocks of text; when did we lose that skill?
Was it the introduction of chapter and verse markings? Instead of helping us quickly find a familiar passage did it allow us to not have to remember? And is there much difference between the versification of Scripture and the advent of Bible software? In some ways they are remarkably the same beast. Both are useful tools, but they come with an unseen potential risk. Both allow quicker reference skills, but both also compartmentalize the Bible into smaller and smaller chunks (byte-size?) that actually make it harder to digest the entire book rather than easier.
Or perhaps it was when we shifted to a quantifiable method of measuring our knowledge of scripture. Enter Bible drills. First, the necessary disclaimer: I think Bible drills are a fun and helpful way for children (or adults) to learn their way around a Bible… but that is the limitation. You learn how to find things, but you don’t necessarily learn what the verse is about or what the context is. To spend so much time finding random verses one right after the other is rather like a librarian on a timed scavenger hunt finding books in a large library but (perhaps) never having read any of the volumes! They can retrieve quickly, but they learn nothing.
Think about this. How many of us are able to readily recognize all the quotes and echoes of the Old Testament in the New Testament? Most of us rely on special typesetting or cross-reference notes to pick up that there even is a reference, much less know the original context of that reference. Here’s the convicting thing… the original readers of the NT did. Many of the Jews of Jesus’ day would have known right away when he was making a reference to an OT reading. They were that familiar with the entire Scripture.
Many people do memorize many individual scriptures (and this is a good and useful tool), but perhaps it should go hand in hand with memorizing (or at least reading until we have great familiarity) large chunks of scripture. It is far to easy to say “Oh, that’s too hard… the Bible is such a large book. You cannot expect people to have that kind of familiarity with such a large volume.”
Hmm. The Bible has 783,137 words (KJV). The Lord of the Rings is somewhere between 600,000 and 750,000. If you throw in The Hobbit or The Silmarillion you are definitely over the Bible wordcount. Sure I know a lot about the Bible, but to my shame, I’d probably have to say that I know more of the literary background, manuscript tradition, linguistic nuances, chronology, characters, geography, and overall storyline better for Tolkien’s work than for the Bible. That’s not to say that my time spent studying Tolkien’s legendarium is not worthwhile (I’ll save my thoughts on the value of Tolkien for another day)… just that I need to be very very conscious of what takes priority in my time, energy, and focus. What I’m trying to say is that if I can know all that I know about The Lord of the Rings (the book), if I can find a scene in that large volume relatively easily, then it is very possible to do the same with Scripture. And so much more vital to my life!
If we just focused on one chapter (or scene) at a time in LOTR and never knew the whole story, we would be severely disadvantaged. We can only truly enjoy savoring individual vignettes when we know the position they hold within the masterpiece. How much more so when it comes to Scripture. Without the big picture, the overarching themes, the interwoven stories, the nuanced references, we are missing some of the riches that God has given us in His Word.
I’m enjoying the opportunity to go both deep (focusing on details) and wide (learning to understand the whole redemptive history shown in the Scripture) here at WTS. Even still, I must guard against just reading works about the Bible, and remember that the book I want to know best is God’s Word itself. I want to be counted as one of those who were known as “People of the Book.”
February 18th, 2005 at 4:26 pm
Hear hear! Anytime I look up any verse [often done in my smartphone], I always read the entire chapter for context; if I don’t get it from that, sometimes I read the chapters to either side.
Of course, sometimes, this means I’m not paying attention to the sermon … but if I’m thinking the pastor pulled a pretty verse out of context, why would I want to be listening to him anyway?
February 19th, 2005 at 12:38 am
Sword Drill
I want to commend to you my wife’s essay called Sword Drill on her blog. Some interesting thoughts about how the way we use and read our Bible’s today may have more effect on our understanding than we realize
February 19th, 2005 at 5:38 am
I want to commend to you my wife’s essay called http://rmfo-blogs.com/lsw/archives/2005/02/18/sword-drill“>Sword Drill on her blog. Some interesting thoughts about how the way we use and read ou [...]
February 19th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
You make an excellent point about the importance of context; but I think you unfairly damn all of us (including yourself) in comparing Tolkien to the Bible. The Bible is not one grand, overarching story; it is a diverse collection of literature over thousands of years from hundreds of authors/redactors. With each scene in LOTR, the reader familiar with the whole will be able to immediately place it’s importance and significance in relation to the whole; but what relation does dietary law have to the apocalyptic Revelation? What relation is there between the sacrifice of Christ and the number of men sent to war by the tribe of Issachar? That is the logical flaw you make - the Bible is not a single book, even if you assume it is ultimately from a single Author.
February 19th, 2005 at 6:04 pm
Ah, but Steve, we do see the Bible as having an overarching story. But sadly, you are right, many people do not see it! And therein lies the challenge and task. We have for so long lost sight of the big picture that we now look at the segments as separate individual unrelated incidents. Yes, there are different genres. Since when did that negate cohesiveness? Even Tolkien has poetry, songs, lists of names, etc. and yet we are able to see the overarching story. The story of Jesus is not told solely in the pages of the Gospels… it is echoed throughout the Old Testament (and not just in proof-text messianic promises). And that is what makes me want to know this whole book so well. I cannot fully understand the glory of what Christ has done for me unless I see the whole picture. I would recommend the book Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament by Christopher J.H. Wright. The first chapter demonstrates how even geneaologies tell stories.
February 19th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
I’ve read the Bible cover to cover many times, and I’ve never seen Jesus anywhere outside the NT, except MAYBE in the newest parts of the OT like Second Isaiah.
February 19th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
February 19th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
So he prooftexted supposedly. Excellent. That’s hardly an argument in favor of Scriptural thematic unity.
February 19th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
No, he did not prooftext. He interpreted…there’s a big difference. Jesus here demonstrated his basic hermeneutical principle: that all the Scriptures are about him (not just the so-called “messianic” passages). He had hinted at this interpretive device at the inauguration of his ministry at the synagogue in Nazareth where he read from the scroll of Isaiah and then said, “This day is that scripture fulfilled in your sight.” The NT writers continue his hermeneutic when they continually use OT quotations as speaking about Christ, even thought those passages plainly had a completely different meaning originally. So since I’ve decided to follow the hermeneutic of the Son of God rather that the hermeneutic of the son of Talley (no offense, friend, but it wasn’t a tough choice
) I have no problem seeing Christ woven throughout the whole story that is the stories of the Bible.
February 19th, 2005 at 8:35 pm
Why is it a good idea to completely re-interpret texts in the OT, but not anywhere else in any written work ever?
February 19th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
Because in this case, it was the author (or co-author might be better) who was giving the interpretation! Imagine if Shakespeare came back to life today, read all the scholarly articles on his plays, and then said, “You guys have got it only partly right…let me tell you what I was really thinking.” Don’t you think we’d give an awful lot of weight to what he’d have to say, even if it meant a major paradigm shift in Shakespearian interpretation?
February 19th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
But it’s more like if I reinterpreted Shakespeare, and for thousands of years people said “Steve is completely and totally right in all senses.”
February 19th, 2005 at 11:55 pm
Yes, but that’s the point. And a good caution. Many times we put our own interpretation on the story, or promote the personal interpretation of someone else instead of going back to the book itself to learn what the Author intends. And that can only happen by faith and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
February 20th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
Not quite what I was talking about, but oh well.
February 22nd, 2005 at 7:03 pm
Hey Karyn, great post! And right after i read it, i read this from David Henderson’s “Culture Shift”…it fits right in!
Anyway, thanks for the post…and I wholeheartedly agree with your points in the comments section about themes of Christ in the Scriptures.
In my humble opinion, Steve, if you can only find Christ in Second Isaiah, then you’re missing a lot of good stuff.
See you in class, Karyn!
February 22nd, 2005 at 7:13 pm
Hey Justin–Thanks for commenting (I just never know whose gonna show up these days!). The quote from Henderson is great.
February 24th, 2005 at 11:05 pm
Justin, if you don’t comment on my blog, you can’t be my friend anymore.
I guess you can be Karyn’s, though.
March 9th, 2005 at 8:08 pm
Hi, I am friends with Michaela from the swooney girls board. I enjoyed reading your post and the banter back and forth between your husband and “steve”. I want so badly to know the Bible as God intended us to know it. To really know the big picture and be familiar with how each story fits in with the big picture. I’ve read the books of the Bible, but not in order and I’m older and in a different place in my life and am seeing some things in a new and different light…really understanding it. I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do, since I was unfortunately mostly influenced by the cultish little charismatic church I attended during my junior high and high school years on into college. I met and married a reformed Presbytarian though =-) and I love it. (by the way, he has has posted on your hubby’s site…his name is Paul. My sister-in-law has two masters from Westminster and my father-in-law was best friends with Ray Dillard. It’s kind of a small world sometimes.
January 14th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
It seems that some are missing the point of a sword drill. It never was meant to spiritualize each found verse or chapter. It was a training to help the young, and old too, to find parts of the bible fast. At one time when asked to turn to a certain book, I had to look up the location. With training, like sword drills, I can find the chapter & verse quickly. I’ll let someone else explain it….