Taking every thought captive

Patrick Kingsley wrote an interesting article in The Guardian last Thursday on ‘The art of slow reading‘. In it he mentions Tracy Seeley’s students’ idea of disconnecting from the Internet for a day a week as a way to combat the effect it has on reading.  This is not as unrealistic as some people consider. It just requires discipline, something that even moderate Internet use undermines easily. I think it is certainly well worth the benefit, not that I’ve managed a day a week, but a day every week or so.

I’m convinced that the Internet is contributing in large measure to a shorter attention span. I find Nicholas Carr’s experience to mirror my own somewhat. However, I think that spending time reading serious books and articles offline does help stem the tide. Without it I think my reading skills and attention span would be much less than at present.

Offline reading also stimulates reflection and engagement. Writing comments and criticism is much easier in offline mode. Critical engagement with online reading tends to negligible at best, non-existent at worst. Online reading has a tendency to fragmentation , as hyperlinks are all to easily followed on impulse, and there is a greater temptation to skim the followed links. Footnotes seem to stimulate later follow up reading for me, rather than instantly looking them up and reading right away. Perhaps it is the potential for ephemerality on the Internet that makes me thing that if I don’t read something now it might have disappeared by the time I get round to reading it. It destroys the pleasure of delayed gratification.

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References:

Nicholas Carr, ‘Experiments in delinkification‘, Rough Type blog, 31 May 2010, with footnote on 4 June 2010.

Launcelot R. Fletcher, The Free Lance Academy (Home of Slow Reading).

Patrick Kingsley, ‘The art of slow reading‘ in The Guardian, 15 July 2010.

Tracy Seeley’s blog, http://tracyseeley.wordpress.com/ (Where the books are always slow and the comment thread is always open).

John Brand has posted a helpful reminder on the importance of reading, and some strategies for making it more effective. ‘Of making many books…‘ will challenge and encourage. I’m just about to get my reading bag packed for holidays (so this occasional post is not a sign of resurrection on the blog just yet). I reckon it’s my most important piece of packing, though I rarely make it through the pile. I’ll be bearing John’s comments in mind as I get to work on the contents.

His follow up postings, ‘Preachers must be readers‘ and ‘More Quotes on Reading‘, give some encouraging snippets on how important reading is for preachers and serious Bible students.

Christopher Smith has a thought-provoking article in Bible Study Magazine (Jug/Aug 2009, Vol. 1, No. 5).

There really are some bizarre chapter divisions, and the online version of the article has an animated review of Colossians that shows the problem well.

There’s also a reference to an IBS project called The Books of the Bible that presents each book without any chapters and verses. There are some free PDF downloads so you can sample the experience. There is also a helpful article by Gordon Fee entitled Why Christians Read Their Bibles Poorly that gives some pointers on how to read Scripture well.

David Murray has some helpful thoughts on sermon preparation in his article Creator or curator? today. I find myself in the creator camp, but I know the appeal of curation, it’s a time thing. Somehow I just can’t bring myself to abandon creation. I know the difference it makes to my understanding of Scripture, so I’m sure the hearers do too. The amount of time that it requires is definitely a worthwhile investment.

Ironically, this is a curation posting!

I believe it because God’s Word proclaims it, and Christ’s apostles preached it.

But some say dead me don’t live again. I say such a statement is dead wrong. Let me explain.

If resurrection is impossible, then Jesus Christ cannot have risen. But that is not what objectors say. They say, “Resurrection is impossible, so Jesus cannot have risen.” The “if” makes all the different. The statement is a possibility, not a fact.

But there is one other possibility to consider before anyone can come to a firm conclusion. “If Jesus rose from the dead, then resurrection is possible.”

There are not other possibilities. And only one of these possibilities can be true. But which is it?

The objection that resurrection is impossible can never be proven. It rests on a universal negative. No one can be that certain about any statement like that without omniscience. Only a fool or an arrogant person would try. Such a statement can only command acceptance on the balance of probability. But one exception disproves it forever. That one exception has already happened. Jesus has risen. He is the one who falsifies the proposition because his resurrection falsifies the premise.

So I say resurrection is possible because Jesus did rise from the dead. The fact is indisputable. The witness statements are to be found in the pages of the New Testament. They are credible. Only the ignorant would deny that Jesus rose from the dead. Reading the accounts and assessing their veracity at first hand is the only sensible and reasonable way to come to a confident conclusion.

But I believe in the bodily resurrection because God’s Word declares it. The logic merely shows that it is a sensible belief, not a non-sensical one. To believe otherwise is nonsensical, credulous and foolish.

Christ is Risen.

He is risen indeed!

Tom Peters has some wise words on the importance of working on your writing:

HT: What’s Best Next

Shane Lens made an interesting comment a few months ago on Michael Horton’s book The Gospel Driven Life. I think he’s right about the impact of segregating groups in the church, especially young people. If that segregation comes to take on a parallel life to fellowship with the whole body then it is certainly detrimental to the health of the whole. So many younger people now do not have meaningful relationships with older saints from whom they can learn so much.

I grew up in a church where there was an active work among the young people, but it never replaced fellowship with the whole body. And I also enjoyed meaningful relationships with all ages within the fellowship. Perhaps times have changed a great deal now that it may not be possible to pursue youth work in this way. Yet I wonder if it cannot be possible. The main obstacle is certainly the faulty notion that the world’s flawed view of how young people ought to be catered for in their supposed development is how the church ought to cater for their youth. We now have the same immaturity among young Christian adults that we see in the world at large. Is it just possible that there is a connection? It’s time to liberate the church from this developmental apartheid for the sake of the unity of the Body. Maybe in the early years of the twenty-first century worshipping with the church of all ages can really involve a church of all ages.

“Preach the gospel; if necessary use words” is like saying “Tell me your phone number; if necessary use digits.”

So says J. D Grear, and he’s absolutely right. The Gospel does not and cannot exist without words. Of course, there’s more to the Gospel than simply preaching, there needs to be a life and lifestyle that is compatible with it, and commending of it. But the Gospel cannot be communicated without words, ever. The Cross is not simply an event or action. It is an explained event, explained by the apostles in the New Testament, and by our Lord himself as he hung on it. No words, no Gospel.

HT. Justin Taylor

I’ve been catching up on my blog reading and realised the Justin Childers posted a challenging article on the Second Coming that is well worth reading: The Judge is Coming: Encouragement to Endure. It’s what Christians are waiting for, but as I mentioned the other day, I wonder how many of us are actually really waiting for it. I particularly liked his emphasis on the moral and spiritual aspects of the Second Coming that are so aften overlooked, despite the fact that it is not the timetable that is uppermost in the mind of the Scripture authors, but these important aspects.

Ben Witherington has an insightful post about death and the Christian. I’ve mentioned our culture’s denial about death before, and I think he’s spot on about the world’s thinking and how it can subtly impact Christian thinking.

I was struck by the old Southern custom of traffic stopping as a funeral cortege passes. I experienced exactly that situation one day a few years ago in Newry, Co Down. I suspect that the South probably preserves something of the widespread customs of a bygone age, just as more rural Northern Ireland does.

Since we live opposite a cemetery on the extreme outskirts of the city, I can’t escape the almost weekly occurrence of funerals right outside the window of the room I work in. But the invisibility of death has made considerable inroads among Christians in this part of the world. I was very surprised to discover my 17-year-old nephew had only been to his first funeral last year. By his age I had been to quite a few funerals, including that of my own mother. Distressing as the latter was, I suspect it would have been considerably more traumatic had I not been prepared by attendance at other funerals before. I’m not convinced that Christian parents are helping their children by shielding them from realities of life, like death. Christians, of all people, should realise that death is not a morbid subject that is off-limits for civilized folks.