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Welcome to Day 1434 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomBible Study Requires Discipline \u2013 Meditation MondayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.\xa0Welcome 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.\xa0Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1434 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday.\xa0Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy.\xa0For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection.\xa0You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God\u2019s Word and in prayer.\xa0It 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.\xa0As 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.\xa0


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.\xa0Our first few insights will focus on study habits to build a strong foundation. Today let us meditate on:


Bible Study Requires Discipline\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Insight Three: Bible Reading is not Bible StudyYou should read your Bible. That\u2019s obvious for Christians, and I\u2019d dispense that piece of advice to anyone. But reading the Bible is not where our engagement with the Bible ends. It\u2019s where it begins. You need to go beyond reading the Bible to a serious study of the Bible. The first step is to realize there\u2019s a significant difference between reading and studying.


Reading is casual, something done for pleasure. The motivation is personal gratification or enrichment, not mastery of the content. Bible reading has as its aim private delight or personal application for our lives and relationship with God. Bible reading is inherently devotional and low maintenance.


Bible study, on the other hand, involves concentration and exertion. We have an intuitive sense that study requires some sort of method or technique and probably certain types of tools or aids. When we study the Bible, we\u2019re asking questions, thinking about context, forming judgments, and looking for more information.


It\u2019s not hard to illustrate the difference. Almost anyone can make a cup of coffee, but they\u2019re not baristas. We know instinctively that both perform the same basic task, but what distinguishes the barista is a lot of time, effort, research, and experience in learned technique. It\u2019s the same with Bible study.


Let\u2019s try another coffee illustration. Let\u2019s say you and your friend were from the moon and didn\u2019t know what coffee was. You\u2019re only mildly interested in the topic, so you decide to look it up in a dictionary. You read that coffee is \u2018a popular beverage made from the roasted and pulverized seeds of a coffee plant. Good enough. You learned something. Your friend wants to know more \u2014a lot more. How is coffee made? What\u2019s the process? Is there more than one process? If so, why would there be different processes? Is there more than one kind of coffee bean? Where are the beans grown? Does that make any difference in color, aroma, or flavor? Is climate a consideration? How is coffee different than tea? If it\u2019s a popular beverage, how much is consumed? Does consumption vary by country? State? Gender? Age?\xa0Whoa. She\u2019s way over the top. And we know why. Her intensity of interest and willingness to expend effort tells us her aim is studying, not just reading. There\u2019s a big...