I Have a New Journaling Bible — How Should I Mark It Up?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - We bid farewell to the 20 teens
00:00:06.040 | with a question from Kevin, still a teen,
00:00:08.280 | an 18 year old listener who has a brand new Bible
00:00:11.120 | and a great question for you.
00:00:13.080 | Hello, Pastor John, my parents just bought me
00:00:14.800 | a new ESV journaling Bible,
00:00:17.040 | interleaved edition for Christmas.
00:00:18.560 | It has a full blank page between each Bible page,
00:00:22.240 | which sounds a lot like Jonathan Edwards' blank Bible.
00:00:24.920 | I'm truly delighted to have it and to begin using it.
00:00:28.160 | I'm hoping it helps me reflect more on God's word
00:00:30.280 | and to be more consistent about spending time with him.
00:00:32.860 | The hangup is this, I've never written in my Bible before.
00:00:37.220 | So having blank pages for notes
00:00:38.500 | is brand new territory for me.
00:00:40.840 | What should I write down?
00:00:42.060 | Should it be a place to document my current discoveries?
00:00:45.440 | Would it be useful to look back
00:00:46.680 | on how God was working in my life,
00:00:48.200 | a spiritual diary of sorts?
00:00:50.620 | Should I date my entries?
00:00:51.840 | Stuff like that.
00:00:52.680 | How would you go about doing this, Pastor John?
00:00:55.040 | - Kevin, you are about to embark on something astonishing.
00:01:00.040 | It could absolutely change your life in very profound ways.
00:01:05.800 | The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword.
00:01:10.840 | It pierces to the division of soul and spirit,
00:01:13.680 | bone and marrow.
00:01:15.120 | It searches out your heart.
00:01:17.080 | The hidden things you don't even know are there.
00:01:20.160 | It's full of liberating, sanctifying power.
00:01:24.680 | Nothing else will be as transforming in your life
00:01:28.840 | as the word of God pursued in regular, disciplined,
00:01:31.560 | focused, prayerful ways through this process
00:01:35.680 | of writing down what you see in God's word.
00:01:38.420 | So I'm very excited for you.
00:01:41.560 | So let's get a few nitty gritty things out of the way,
00:01:44.960 | and then I'll mention four things
00:01:48.360 | that I think will give solid foundation and guidance
00:01:51.560 | for this practice of journaling.
00:01:55.280 | Yes, date your entries.
00:01:58.040 | Later, you will see amazing correlations
00:02:00.680 | between what you saw on a date
00:02:03.760 | and what God was doing in your life at that time.
00:02:07.560 | Use a pencil, not a pen.
00:02:10.960 | You need to be able to erase and correct.
00:02:14.380 | So get an automatic number two pencil with 0.5 lid,
00:02:18.720 | not 0.7, 0.5.
00:02:21.360 | It needs to be tiny enough to fit a lot on the page,
00:02:25.040 | and it needs to have an eraser.
00:02:27.300 | So decide on the size of your margins.
00:02:30.680 | Fill up the space in between.
00:02:33.240 | Here's something you may not have thought of.
00:02:35.160 | Create an overflow system for when you want
00:02:39.000 | to write more than can fit on a page.
00:02:41.800 | And I would say start a notebook.
00:02:44.120 | It might be paper.
00:02:46.040 | I did this 40 years ago.
00:02:47.720 | I call them sermon gardens,
00:02:50.360 | because I heard somebody say that,
00:02:52.200 | and it was a spiral binder,
00:02:55.200 | sermon garden number one, sermon garden number two.
00:02:58.040 | It's just where I jotted down ideas that I had seen,
00:03:01.000 | 'cause I didn't have one of those journaling Bibles.
00:03:03.560 | Or it might be a word processor document,
00:03:06.520 | and name it journal Bible overflow number one,
00:03:11.120 | and then number the entries inside it
00:03:14.160 | as one, two, three, and so on.
00:03:16.680 | So when you leave the blank journal Bible page
00:03:20.640 | and go to your overflow,
00:03:22.240 | you correlate it with notebook number one,
00:03:24.800 | entry number one, so 1.1 or something like that.
00:03:28.300 | So those are my nitty gritties.
00:03:29.720 | Get those out of the way right away.
00:03:31.720 | Now here are my four suggestions
00:03:34.240 | for foundation and guidance.
00:03:37.060 | And I've thought of a way to put them in four P's,
00:03:40.280 | perceive, present, preserve, plan.
00:03:44.040 | So perceive.
00:03:45.780 | Paul said in Ephesians 3, 4,
00:03:49.600 | in reading this, you can perceive,
00:03:53.440 | here's my first P,
00:03:54.520 | you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ.
00:03:59.200 | This is astonishing.
00:04:00.720 | Just think of it.
00:04:01.560 | God has ordained that by the ordinary human act of reading,
00:04:06.560 | the human mind can penetrate into the mystery of Christ.
00:04:14.620 | It is a work of God in our minds.
00:04:17.640 | The spirit must be doing a decisive work
00:04:21.680 | in our minds and hearts,
00:04:23.000 | but reading is the human means
00:04:27.040 | that God has appointed for how that work happens.
00:04:30.040 | So what I want to add to that statement of Paul
00:04:34.920 | is that there are eyes in the tip of your pencil.
00:04:39.920 | There are eyes in the tip of your pencil.
00:04:43.560 | And these eyes cause your reading to detect so much more.
00:04:48.560 | Calvin said, and I say the very same thing,
00:04:52.700 | and I think you'll probably wind up saying it too.
00:04:54.800 | I count myself among the number
00:04:57.960 | of those who write as they learn and learn as they write.
00:05:02.960 | That's exactly what you'll find,
00:05:06.160 | that as you write, you see,
00:05:09.000 | as you write, you learn.
00:05:11.080 | You will find, I promise you this,
00:05:12.840 | you will find that writing does not just record what you see,
00:05:17.840 | it increases what you see, what you perceive.
00:05:24.080 | So here's what I would write.
00:05:26.680 | Number one, I would write paraphrases
00:05:30.640 | in your own words of the verses that arrest your attention.
00:05:35.520 | That will force questions.
00:05:38.580 | Trying to paraphrase it will force questions
00:05:41.360 | about meanings of words and phrases
00:05:43.600 | and how things connect with each other.
00:05:45.800 | And second, write those questions down.
00:05:48.840 | Third, write possible answers to your questions.
00:05:53.280 | Fourth, write arguments that favor one answer
00:05:57.180 | over the other.
00:05:58.320 | Fifth, write the insights that come to you
00:06:01.640 | as you wrestle with these questions and these answers.
00:06:05.920 | There's a lot more, but that's enough
00:06:08.780 | to get you started with great fruitfulness.
00:06:12.240 | So the first reason for writing, for journaling,
00:06:15.640 | is that there are eyes in the tip of your pencil
00:06:19.400 | and you will perceive more because of your writing.
00:06:23.360 | You will learn as you write
00:06:24.880 | and you will see as you seek to say.
00:06:29.680 | Here's number two, present.
00:06:31.600 | Ecclesiastes, chapter 12, verse 10 says,
00:06:34.520 | the preacher, that's the author of Ecclesiastes,
00:06:38.080 | the preacher sought to find words of delight
00:06:43.080 | and uprightly he wrote words of truth.
00:06:48.160 | So what did he do in his journal?
00:06:49.600 | What did he do?
00:06:50.440 | He sought, he sought, it says.
00:06:54.360 | What did he seek?
00:06:55.640 | He sought words.
00:06:57.720 | He did not just write the first words
00:07:00.400 | that came to his head, right?
00:07:02.120 | He sought.
00:07:03.360 | A word came to his head and he said,
00:07:05.000 | no, I'm gonna seek another word.
00:07:07.240 | So he paused, he ransacked his experience
00:07:10.560 | and his memory for special words.
00:07:14.000 | What kind of words?
00:07:15.840 | Words that delight.
00:07:17.880 | Proverbs 25, 11 says, a word fitly spoken
00:07:22.120 | is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.
00:07:24.980 | That means they really are pleasing.
00:07:27.120 | These words are pleasing.
00:07:28.600 | When somebody says them at a right moment,
00:07:30.360 | at a right time, in a right way,
00:07:31.680 | they're just like a great meal.
00:07:34.280 | Somebody has said a word and it felt and tasted so good.
00:07:38.080 | They create a good effect in the hearer.
00:07:41.080 | So do this.
00:07:42.840 | Pause and seek a better word, a better phrase,
00:07:47.840 | one that surprises and awakens
00:07:50.220 | and causes a kind of pleasure.
00:07:52.720 | Yes, even in your own mind,
00:07:54.640 | even if it shocks and rebukes.
00:07:57.760 | But there's another trait, he said,
00:07:59.880 | that the words are supposed to have.
00:08:02.060 | He said, uprightly, he wrote words of truth.
00:08:06.080 | So strive to write with words that are true and beautiful.
00:08:11.080 | And yes, I am suggesting that you
00:08:15.920 | not just write for yourself.
00:08:18.080 | I know that may sound a little odd,
00:08:19.640 | maybe even a little presumptuous.
00:08:21.640 | Imagine a person or a group, a wife, a child,
00:08:26.240 | a husband, whatever.
00:08:28.480 | Imagine, this is Kevin we're talking to,
00:08:31.400 | so don't imagine a husband.
00:08:32.440 | Imagine a wife who is gonna read what you write
00:08:37.440 | or a group of people and write for them too.
00:08:41.800 | God loves to give wisdom to those
00:08:45.240 | who plan to share his wisdom.
00:08:47.520 | Let me say that again.
00:08:48.680 | God loves to give fresh sight and wisdom
00:08:53.680 | to those who long to share his wisdom with others.
00:08:57.480 | So that's why I use the word present.
00:09:00.120 | Number three, preserve.
00:09:01.800 | Psalm 103, verse two says,
00:09:04.040 | "Bless the Lord, O my soul,
00:09:05.720 | and forget not all his benefits."
00:09:10.200 | So inevitably, it seems to me, we forget things.
00:09:13.600 | There are thousands of blessings
00:09:15.600 | God will bring into your life every month of your life,
00:09:18.160 | millions every year,
00:09:19.720 | and you will not remember most of them.
00:09:22.680 | It's impossible to remember millions of blessings
00:09:25.860 | that God brings into your life.
00:09:27.120 | You can't even see them when they're happening sometimes.
00:09:30.400 | So I take this to mean, remember all kinds of benefits,
00:09:35.400 | and journaling is one way to do that.
00:09:39.560 | Remember what he has taught you.
00:09:41.960 | Write it down.
00:09:43.800 | Peter said he wrote his two letters, his two epistles,
00:09:47.960 | to help people remember what the Lord had taught.
00:09:52.040 | We need written reminders.
00:09:54.420 | The Bible is a witness to the fact
00:09:56.800 | that we need written reminders.
00:09:59.920 | So create them for yourself.
00:10:01.560 | And lastly, plan.
00:10:03.920 | All I mean here is choose ahead of time
00:10:07.840 | what you're gonna be reading
00:10:09.200 | for the week or the month or the year.
00:10:11.460 | If you intend to write regularly,
00:10:14.960 | you won't be able to comment on lots of chapters.
00:10:19.880 | For starters then, it seems to me,
00:10:21.920 | perhaps pick a short book like Colossians or Philippians
00:10:26.280 | and plan to read a section a day and write about it
00:10:29.320 | as I suggested above.
00:10:31.520 | And then you'll learn from experience
00:10:33.720 | how your reading and your writing flow together.
00:10:36.280 | So I'm excited for you, Kevin.
00:10:38.100 | Francis Bacon said, "Reading makes a fool man.
00:10:41.600 | "Conference," meaning conversation, "makes a ready man.
00:10:45.340 | "Writing makes an exact man."
00:10:48.680 | The world suffers today way too much
00:10:53.180 | from ambiguity and carelessness
00:10:55.880 | and inexactness and imprecision.
00:10:58.660 | But writing makes a penetratingly perceiving man
00:11:03.660 | and a creatively presenting man
00:11:06.500 | and a worshipfully persevering and preserving man
00:11:11.500 | and an exact man, and we need that.
00:11:15.120 | - Yes, we sure do.
00:11:16.060 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:11:17.260 | And thank you for the question, Kevin.
00:11:19.220 | Well, 2020 is upon us now.
00:11:21.700 | It's surreal.
00:11:22.660 | I mean, this is the mythical year
00:11:24.180 | from all of the sci-fi books and movies of my childhood.
00:11:27.420 | 2020 is here.
00:11:28.780 | We were supposed to have flying cars and robotic maids
00:11:31.060 | and butlers and colonies on Mars.
00:11:33.620 | Alas, but what we do have for you
00:11:35.820 | in your first taste of 2020,
00:11:37.460 | Pastor John is gonna make his case
00:11:38.980 | for why you need to set personal resolutions.
00:11:42.660 | That's right, a defense of personal resolutions.
00:11:45.720 | That's coming up on Wednesday.
00:11:47.360 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:49.180 | We'll see you in the future.
00:11:50.580 | (upbeat music)
00:11:53.160 | (upbeat music)
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