This is a sweet article. It is written by a Staff member of a Christian organization, but he gives a unique perspective about quiet times that i felt challenged by. Read it. Ponder it. -Kate
February 13, 2005
Unequally Yoked
by Will Walker
I was taught to have quiet times, first as a child in the corner and then as an adult at the coffee shop. Both are wonderful and should be treasured as part of the American way of life. What I don’t understand, though, is how the Bible got mixed up with quiet times the way it did.
Never have two simple words so shaped the way people think about what it means to study the Bible. The approach has become common, even prescriptive:
Find a quiet place, maybe some music in the background, coffee/tea, comfy chair, etc.
Read something in the Bible.
Maybe journal or pray about what you read.
Maybe read something that someone else has to say about what you read.
Impress someone with whatever it is you learned (optional, and for experienced Christians only).
This would by most standards be considered a good approach to Bible study. I think it stinks. I am biased, of course, because I fail miserably at the whole quiet time agenda. I always have.
For the last year or so I haven't really read the Bible in this way: personally, quietly, devotionally. I have discussed parts of it with people, read it to prepare for talks and small groups, written about some of its passages and ideas on this blog, and read a few complimentary books along the way. Either I am a horrible Christian or it is possible to learn the Bible and love Jesus/people apart from this approach. I think I’ll go with the latter.
I think if you explained what a quiet time is to Peter and John that they would get a good laugh together when you weren't around. It seems to me that the Bible was meant to be read aloud, heard in community, talked about at dinner, applied to actual life, argued, anything but confined to the comfy recesses of your "devotional life".
Have you ever had this experience: Someone asks if you read a particular book. You say yes. They ask if you liked it, and you say you loved it, and they say, "What's it about?" This is the point when you realize that you can't articulate much once you get past the very obvious stuff. It was terrifically meaningful when you read it, but somehow it lost its place in your mind and life. I’m saying the same thing happens with stuff you read in quiet times past.
I’m always assuming that I understand what I read, and it isn’t until I get to talk about it that I see how much I still don’t understand. People see things differently, and when we talk about what we know we allow others to show us a new perspective, and vice versa.
Paul urged us to “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly.” The context shows the communal emphasis of this command. It is overtly relational: peace, one body, teaching and admonishing, wisdom, singing, marriage, slavery, etc. If the only place the Bible gets to “dwell” in your life is your quiet time— not in your conversations and communities— I think you might be surprised at how much assumed understanding you have.
To turn all this on its head, I propose something more than a coffee shop with a loveseat. I offer to you the TV devotional, wherein you get up every morning to snuggle up on the couch and spend and hour or so watching your favorite shows (Tivo makes this all possible). Then, during the rest of the day when you would normally watch and talk about TV, you could read and talk about the Bible, especially as it interacts with your actual life.
I call this the communal quiet time. An evening might be spent with family or friends reading and talking about your ideas, maybe even serving people as the Bible suggests.
I’m not opposed to quiet moments of reflection or prayer. I just think that the Bible is noisier than our devotionals will permit.