The Discipline of Study

Have you ever tried to do something and found it was much harder than it looked - certainly the first time I tried snowboarding it was a surprise just how hard it was. I was experiencing the first of the 4 stages of learning.

The first is unconscious incompetent, where you don't yet know what you don't know - I didn't know how to snowboard, nor did I know how hard it was (a couple of weeks and I should be like Shaun White right?)

The second is conscious incompetent - you now know you can't do something, I spent a good while at this stage when I was faceplanting at 2 miles and hour learning to snowboard

The third comes after some practice and is conscious competent - you know how to do something but it requires concentration and thought - this is where I am now

The final stage is unconscious competent - you no longer have to think about how to do it, it just comes naturally

This session is about gaining an understanding of where we are at in terms of our ability to study and gaining some tools to help us progress towards unconscious competence.

Q: So why do we need to study?

• To know the truth
• To weather emotional , physical or spiritual storms
• To recognize and challenge bad teaching
• To be changed
• To be able to engage in meaningful debate
• To really engage in what is going on around us

The main grievance the new evangelical atheists have against Christians is that we don't reason things through and we're not rational about our faith. Writers like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins get really worked up about what they perceive as the deliberate ignorance of Christians who they regard as non-thinkers as far as anything to do with religion goes. Now if you read any of their books you'll find they display the same lack of reason they accuse Christians of, but there's no smoke without fire and many Christians do exhibit a woeful disregard to critical thinking as far as their faith goes.

Q: What causes so many Christians to leave their brains at home in matters of their faith?

• Symptomatic of other areas of their life - some people don't really think about anything
  
• Regarded as something for pastors or leaders - symptomatic of our consumer culture -we're just consumers of the message
  
• Using Christianity as a crutch or a club - they don't really believe it is true and they are worried about what they will find if they start digging
• Don't want to change - ignorance is bliss
• Think study is boring or study about Christianity is boring
• Its about faith, not about knowledge

So given that we don't want to fall into one of the above categories, how do we study?

Repetition - In order for us to be able to really study a subject it has to become familiar to us, repetition is an often maligned teaching technique, as it should be if that is all there is, but is vital in order for us to be able to be able to make associations and study effectively. It takes a certain amount of repetition for anything to sink in - think about learning a language, it takes a fair bit of hearing the same words used time and time again before we can easily bring them to mind.

Read Phillipians 4:8 - it talks about thinking about things that will build up our faith. Notice that is doesn't talk about thinking about avoiding sin - thinking about avoiding sin is like thinking about avoiding a tiger wearing a blue baseball cap and beating a drum - we never would have thought of it unless we were told to avoid it, but when we're told to avoid it it becomes hard to.

The second phase of study is Concentration - In the age of speed and multi-tasking, the ability to fully concentrate on a task is becoming lost and yet it is essential for solving hard problems or thinking through complex situations - these are things we cannot do with serious concentration.

Next comes Comprehension - The ability to string the concepts we have studied together so that we can replay them in our mind, it make sense to us and we can relate it to our understanding of the world means that we have comprehended the thing we are studying.

And finally Reflection - Means that we have not only understood what we were studying but have taken it to heart, we have pondered how it fits with the other things we have studied and we can explain it in different terms to other people with examples from our own experience if applicable.

If we really understand something we can explain even complex concepts to people in simple language - this is the acid test for how much we know the subject we have studied

Let's apply these steps to snowboarding - we have to do a certain amount of it (including all the accompanying falling over) to get anywhere (repetition), and we have to listen to what we're being told about doing it and think hard about how we put it into practice (concentration). Things start to click when we can link our actions to the results we are seeing - when we see the theory working (comprehension) and finally when we can do something we think about how we did it and what we could improve so we can explain what we have learned and what we need to do to improve (reflection)

Studying then applies to all we do, not just study of books, but we also need to know how to study a book. The secret to understanding a book is to really try to see things as the author sees them, suspending judgment until after we have had time to digest what the author is saying. The way to approach a book for study is to

Understand - what is the author saying
Interpret - what do they mean by it
Evaluate - how valid is what they are saying

Often we approach a book in reverse, with a view of how 'good' or accurate the book is going to be and then we see what it says.

The Bible is the most important book we can study, and there is no set way to study the Bible but here are a few important ways
Read the whole Bible - not necessarily straight through but read whole books at a time so that you remember the flow and context of each chapter. Read the same book several times in a row so that you have learned chunks of it and can see them in a different light.

Q: What kinds of styles does the Bible use to get its message across? Prophesy, Simile, Parables, History, Literary, Poetry, Comedy, Hyperbole, Instruction

So it is important to understand the context of the passage we read, is it meant to be taken literally, as an instruction for the people to whom it is being spoken, a parable? In particular Jesus often spoke in ways that were not meant to be taken literally and he would often say 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear'
Q: What does Jesus mean by that phrase?


Q: So how are we supposed to know how to interpret what we read?
Well there are some things to remember about how we understand the Bible, such as: we know that God doesn't change, we know that He is consistent in character, we know that He is Love and we know that he is not bound by our limited view of a human lifetime and instead sees eternity, so his perspective and timing do not always make sense from our limited viewpoint.

When we look at the Bible we need to bear this in mind - we also need to understand the context of the passage, usually by reading what has just gone on before or what is about to come.

Let's use these thoughts when we look at a Bible passage to answer the following question - If study is so transformational why is it that the Pharisees and Sadducees were so criticized by Jesus for their lack of transformation?

Read: Matt 23:8-10.
But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ
Q: How is this passage meant to be interpreted
Q: What is Jesus saying in the passage?

So let's put some of the lessons into practice, looking back at the chapter before and the verses preceding this we can see that the Pharisees and Sadducees were trying to trap Jesus with clever arguments, reading a little ahead we hear Jesus saying 'For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted'

So this is not meant to be taken literally, it is meant as hyperbole (an exaggeration made to make a point). Jesus is saying that to gain an authoritative title for the sake of show or to be in a position of authority because you like the trappings of that role completely goes against the nature of authority. People in authority need to regard themselves with extra humility because of the responsibility that goes with their position, the potential for them to misguide people and the impact if they are not doing a good job is higher than for those not in authority. As James says (James 3:1) 'Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly'.


Hopefully that all made sense, now let's try it with this passage - you should set aside at least 30 minutes for this.

Challenge 1 - To put some of this into practice read Luke 14:25-35 and spend time thinking about what it meant, the context it was in, who was it aimed at and what was the intention of it.

Here's the passage, see what you make of it

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Consider both asking and answering the questions that come to mind as you read this as an important part of study is to capture these questions as you read (e.g. What style is the teaching in? Who is the audience?)

Feel free to use any study guides or ask others - something that it is very helpful for effective study of any book is to understand the thoughts of others on the same or similar subjects which we can gain from reading other books or from discussion in groups. It also helps course correct us if we start having really way off thoughts.



Challenge 2 - Find a subject to really study, if you're not sure what you could study here are a few suggestions

• Your Classroom Dynamics
• Why do we have religious denominations
• Why schoolwork can be dull

email me back your thoughts on the subject, it doesn't have to be one of the ones above - don't write lots of words for the sake of lots of words, remember from last week that we should aim to make things 'as simple as possible, but no simpler (Einstein)

If it seems difficult and that 'nothing is going on' think of the story about a woman who wanted to be a writer but always seemed unable to get started. When she was asked what she saw that was interesting to write about she couldn't find anything and when given an exercise to write 500 words about the things she saw she was unable to complete the assignment. Eventually her teacher told her to write simply about the step to her front door. The woman sat and focused on the step where she saw ants moving in and out of a crack, a receipt for something she had forgotten she had bought and many other things that she normally would never have noticed. Now the woman couldn't stop writing and wrote thousands of words - she had learned to properly observe.

Finally the life lesson for the week

Life Lesson
Study is the observance and understanding of all we see through repetition, concentration, comprehension and reflection. It is vital for our growth and change as Christians, provided we undertake it with an attitude of humility so that we do not learn for the sake of having more knowledge, but in order to serve God more fully.