Snippet: False Guilt

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Here’s one from Kristen Wetherell at the Gospel Coalition site in an article she wrote on “When You Don’t Want to Read Your Bible”:

“Only later did the irony of our conversation occur to me: these believers who were lamenting how hard it is to engage with Scripture were doing just that. Right then. Together.”

She’s talking about how her Bible study group was lamenting how they didn’t make enough time to read and reflect on the Bible because they often missed their “quiet time.” They were lamenting this while studying the Bible together, something they prioritized in their lives.

She addresses the false guilt that a lot of busy people, including busy moms, struggle with—not having a consistent personal “quiet time.”

Part of her point is that these women were, in some ways, diminishing the gathering and seemingly favoring individual Bible study and reflection.

Here’s a further irony: Until the invention of the printing press, no one but the very uber-rich could even have a Bible in their homes. New Testament folks studied the Bible a lot but rarely, if ever, on their own.

Having Bibles in our homes and on our phones is a huge gift, and there is an overwhelmingly strong correlation between daily Bible reflection and spiritual maturity, the kind of maturity that results in living missionally. But we also need to beware of false guilt over not adopting all the mores of our modern Christian subculture that are not directly tied to Scripture.

Wetherell writes, “In Western Christian culture, we’ve come to assume certain components for our Bible reading. Solitude. Silence. An hour or two of reading, study, meditation, and prayer. Good coffee in an inspirational mug. Perhaps some soft worship music in the background. But these aren’t biblical requirements for engaging God’s Word, nor are they realistic for everyone. (Like this mom whose kids are screaming in the background.)”

At the same time, she offers two tips for renewing our desire to read and study God’s Word.

• Feast with your church.

  “The first and primary way believers can engage with the Bible is alongside our church families in the weekly worship service. This is our main spiritual meal. I argue this because of what the Bible is: God’s words directed to God’s people. The Bible wasn’t primarily written to individuals but to the church—the gathered people of God.”

• Find a fresh method.

Check out the article if you’re feeling a little bored with God’s Word. All I would add is to check out the great resources at the BibleProject, especially on their app, or the reading plans in the YouVersion app.

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

Snippet: Palpable Longing

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Here’s one from Professor Beth Feller Jones in a recent Christianity Today article. In a sense, the title itself is a snippet: “Barbie and Taylor Swift Are Bringing Us Together: Beyond hot pink and bejeweled outfits, they showcase a deeper desire for community and collective joy.” But here’s the snippet (really, some highlights from the article and one reflection):

“Both my 18-year-old son and my 16-year-old daughter—despite never having played with Barbies as children and being on the younger end of the age spectrum for Taylor Swift fans—are all in.

“…The pandemic interrupted my kids’ lives at a crucial developmental point. For them, there’s almost no ‘before’ the pandemic in their teen years—there’s only the newly opening of the after. And in that wake, what if what my kids want is communal meaning—the kind that is supposed to mark our local churches?

“…As Justine McDaniel pointed out, the ‘Barbie-Taylor-Beyoncé summer offers a release of pandemic emotions’—exposing a hunger, Goldberg said, that is ‘a palpable longing for both communal delight and catharsis.’

“…that’s what church is. It’s life in the body together, the people gathered around the one who is the truth, who gives life meaning, who knows our embodied longings because he took on flesh for our sake. The kids want communal meaning. So I’m going to keep hoping—hoping that, maybe, what they want is the body of Christ.”

This made me think of one of my greatest memories from the early days of the pandemic.

It was the spring of 2020. Lois and I dropped in on the church backyard prom planned by some of the junior and senior girls from our youth group. I still choke up every single time I watch the video and remember that night.

I know our church was and continues to be a place of deep communal meaning (and so much more) for so many of our students.

You can watch the highlight video from the prom above (or here), captured from the Student Ministry Instagram account.