The Power of the Towel

I've read through James many times before and the book has always struck me as choppy. James touches on one topic, moves to another topic, leaps to another, and the book ends. They are all wonderful topics, to say the least, but it always has seemed to me to be a smattering of topics, nonetheless. That is, until recently...

I was going through a study on the spiritual disciplines, and as I was focused on the specific discipline of Scripture intake, I realized something that has revolutionized how I read the Bible. Now, when I say revolutionize, I don't mean that what I realized was something that was new or never been discovered before, but that it was something so simple and plain that I'd missed out for a long time. Our society is a society built on speed and efficiency, and it has translated to how we (I'll speak for myself - I) read God's word. We hear statements like, "Read your Bible through in a year," and, "5 minutes with the Lord." We might also talk about how many chapters we've read this week or hear of people talking (boasting?) about how many times they've read the Bible in it's entirety. Why is it that when it comes to spending time with our true Love, we speed through it? I wouldn't do that when I spend time with my wife, so why do I do that when it comes to spending time with God?

"Hey hunny, I don't have a lot of time today, but here's five minutes. Go!" "Babe, I'm on a schedule. I know you want to talk about other things, but I've got to talk about _____ and _____, and then skip over to ______. It doesn't look like I'm scheduled to have that discussion with you until October." "My wife wrote me this love letter, and I breezed right through it!" It just doesn't make sense, but that's how I would treat reading through Scripture. I wasn't content with reading a verse or two and marinating in it; meditating on it and memorizing it. One may say, "But Ryan, it'll take years to get through Scripture that way!" to which I would reply, I'd rather take it slow and get daily insight, wisdom, correction, doctrine, and instruction in how to live righteously, than read my Bible through in a year and have grasped very little to actually live by and make applicable to my life.

Now, I know that God's Word "doesn't return void." So please don't think I'm saying that reading through Scripture in a year is, by any means, bad or wrong, or that you won't get anything out of it. But what I am saying is that we shouldn't let our cultural concept of speed and efficiency dictate how we spend time with the One who loved us so much that He gave His life for us.

For years, that's how I read James. I just breezed through it. Lot's of good topics, but I wondered how good a writer James actually was. I didn't see any continuity or flow. But now that I've slowed down and actually taken the time necessary to grasp what James was writing about, I see it much more clearly now. Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter that concludes with the main concept. We, as Christ-followers, are to be doers of the Word, and not merely hearers. He then ends the chapter by stating three things Christ-followers do that separates them from the rest: they work at bridling their tongue, they show true benevolence to the outcasts of society, and they don't allow the world to "spot" or "taint" them. The rest of the book, James spends his time writing about those three things. And to think that I'd missed out for all these years because I just had to read as much as I could in as little time as possible.