Learning the Bible is a quest for knowledge, but it is ultimately a quest for understanding. Unlike a newspaper, the Bible is far more than a delivery system for information - it aims to shape the way we think. This means that, more often than not, we should expect to experience frustration when we sit down to read it.
Do you expect to be met with frustration when you study the Bible? How do you react to the dissonance you feel when your understanding is no equal to a passage? As adults, we no longer must stick to a course of study because a teacher or parent is holding us accountable. If we give in to impatience with the learning process, we tend to react in one of two ways:
1. We give up. Finding studying the Bible to be too confusing, many of us think "this must not be my area of gifting" and we move on to aspects of our faith that come more naturally. We allow sermons, podcasts, books or blogs to be our sole source of intake for the Bible. We may read the Bible devotionally, but we assume that we are just not wired to learn in any sort of structured way.
2. We look for a shortcut. Wanting to remove as quickly as possible our sense of feeling lost in a text, we run to the notes in our study Bible immediately after reading it. Or we keep a commentary handy so we can consult it at the first signs of confusion. And thanks to the internet, help is never far away. If we read something confusing, there is no need for tears of frustration - we can simply read what the note in our study Bible says or look up an answer to our question online. But is having interpretive help readily available as helpful as it seems? Or do we end up like those kids in high school English who never actually read a book because the CliffsNotes or the movie was easily available? In reality, using a shortcut is only marginally better than giving up because it does not honor the learning process. By hurrying to eliminate the dissonance of the "I don't know" moment, it actually diminishes the effectiveness of the "aha moment" of discovery.
