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Welcome to Day 1429 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomThinking While Studying The Bible – Meditation MondayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1429 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind. 


We are going to begin a new series this week on Meditation Monday, which will focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Dr. Michael Heiser. Our first few insights will focus on study habits to build a strong foundation. Today let us meditate on:


Thinking While Studying The Bible·      Insight One: Read the Bible with a Critical Eye –It Can Take ItChristians revere the Bible. That’s understandable. After all, it’s God’s Word, the authoritative source for truths we affirm, errors we deny, and the sort of character we strive to develop. Consequently, its sacred status might cause us to flinch at the suggestion that we should question what it says and scrutinize its contents. It feels a little like we’re judging a book that ought to be judging us. Is our hesitation biblical? Dare I ask, is it rational? Frankly, the answer is “no” in both cases.


The Bible has been fulfilling the roles described above for millennia despite repeated and relentless attempts to destroy it, undermine it, ridicule it, and marginalize it. After all of that, it’s still here. In fact, today, there are more Bibles in circulation in more languages than at any time in world history. How could we possibly harm it by asking it to make sense and then pursuing that goal?


The response that subjecting the Bible to critical analysis hurts us is equally incoherent, primarily because the Bible itself encourages its own scrutiny. Ezra is esteemed for his commitment to study (Ezra 7:10). Luke regards the close examination of the Scriptures as a virtue (Acts 17:11). Biblical writers not only quote Scripture but take care to observe minute details like the specific form of words (Galatians 3:16). We are God’s imager-bearers. God is the most rational being there can be. We share in his attribute. We are not commanded, nor does the Bible ever suggest, that we read Scripture irrationally or without the intellectual abilities for rational thought that God shares with us. Have you ever tried to read anything irrationally? It sort of defeats the purpose of written communication. Critical thinking is akin to any other human ability—speech, strength, creativity, resourcefulness—and it’s ours to employ in loyal service to the true God. Approaching Scripture with a passive, anesthetized mind will not protect Scripture from criticism. It needs no protection. Intellectual laziness in search of truth is no virtue.


·      Insight Two: Thinking Is Better Than MemorizingDr. Heiser shares that when he was a freshman in Bible college, one of my professors was something of a zealot for Bible memorization. During...