This week in the with-God life we look at how we’re to be devoted to a life of study. If we want to be more like Jesus, there must be a commitment to being students, learners, disciples of His ways and His words.
When I was in Uganda, I was part of a mission team that planted quite a few churches, and we found ourselves in a dilemma. We had to train leaders, and we realized an important part of training them would be formal study and learning of God’s word. We formed a training program called Basoga Bible School (BBS), and we instituted a curriculum. BBS is still going today, but it’s an interesting school because many of the leaders who attend BBS cannot read and write! The ones who can read and write are usually not “literate” in the same way that Americans might be. They talk to friends or listen to the radio to learn things. They are not illiterate but are largely “pre-literate”…or they don’t live lives that orient them to continually reading as you or I might be with our inboxes jammed with emails.
I’m not a very studious guy. I managed to make it through college by playing lots of intramural sports and then (secondarily) cramming at the last minute for whatever tests were required. I’m not proud of that history, but I might as well be honest that I am hardly the guy to wax eloquently about a life of study! But, the athlete in me draws me back to a phrase we always hear from TV commentators talking about sports. Whenever they want to refer to a particularly “smart” player in whatever sport, they almost always say something like, “He (or she) is such a student of the game!” What do they mean by that? Do they mean she sits and reads books all the time about dribbling or bowling or throwing a javelin? Certainly that’s part of it, but I would suggest that in a much bigger way they mean she is a much different sort of “student” than we think of when we normally use that word. They mean she is thoughtful, always watching, always eager to learn from what she sees the best of the best do on the field of play. She eagerly looks for and applies lessons to her “game”.
My point is that my friends in Uganda taught me a lot about being “students of the game”. BBS hopefully taught (and is teaching) them something about being students of the word. I think the cool thing about serving Jesus is that he is a living Word. We are called to not only study the static (but still living) word on the page in the Bible, but we are also challenged to watch His game (His life) and to imitate His moves, His techniques, His vision. May we be students of both aspects of the Word!
When I was in Uganda, I was part of a mission team that planted quite a few churches, and we found ourselves in a dilemma. We had to train leaders, and we realized an important part of training them would be formal study and learning of God’s word. We formed a training program called Basoga Bible School (BBS), and we instituted a curriculum. BBS is still going today, but it’s an interesting school because many of the leaders who attend BBS cannot read and write! The ones who can read and write are usually not “literate” in the same way that Americans might be. They talk to friends or listen to the radio to learn things. They are not illiterate but are largely “pre-literate”…or they don’t live lives that orient them to continually reading as you or I might be with our inboxes jammed with emails.
I’m not a very studious guy. I managed to make it through college by playing lots of intramural sports and then (secondarily) cramming at the last minute for whatever tests were required. I’m not proud of that history, but I might as well be honest that I am hardly the guy to wax eloquently about a life of study! But, the athlete in me draws me back to a phrase we always hear from TV commentators talking about sports. Whenever they want to refer to a particularly “smart” player in whatever sport, they almost always say something like, “He (or she) is such a student of the game!” What do they mean by that? Do they mean she sits and reads books all the time about dribbling or bowling or throwing a javelin? Certainly that’s part of it, but I would suggest that in a much bigger way they mean she is a much different sort of “student” than we think of when we normally use that word. They mean she is thoughtful, always watching, always eager to learn from what she sees the best of the best do on the field of play. She eagerly looks for and applies lessons to her “game”.
My point is that my friends in Uganda taught me a lot about being “students of the game”. BBS hopefully taught (and is teaching) them something about being students of the word. I think the cool thing about serving Jesus is that he is a living Word. We are called to not only study the static (but still living) word on the page in the Bible, but we are also challenged to watch His game (His life) and to imitate His moves, His techniques, His vision. May we be students of both aspects of the Word!
Mark
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