Missing The Forest For The Trees
I love studying the word of God.
I love to dig in and look at the sentence structure. I love to find out what the words mean. I love to divide up the paragraphs and outline chapters.
I love the trees of studying the Bible.
What I don’t love is missing the forest for the trees.
Sometimes that’s what I think some of us do. Sometimes that’s what I think I have the tendency to do.
I run around looking at all of the variety of pretty trees. And sometimes I can miss the forest.
I can tell you everything there is to know about a certain passage of scripture after I study it for a while.
What I might miss and forget to tell you about is the point.
What is the point of the scripture you and I may study? We might see it in the detailed study of a section of scripture. We just need to be sure to not miss the pont of what we’re studying.
Do you ever miss the forest for the trees?
Too often. I have to work to see the Scripture for what it is and not for a sermon.
Bill, that is something I think pastors are prone to do: studying for sermons, not for themselves. Some I’ve talked to even admit it.
Awesome point, Larry. One church I was a part of went used “The Story of God” for teaching- basically made sure people understood the narrative of scripture (forest) before trying to dissect specific passages (trees).
Stephen, that’s great. We need a micro and macro view of the entire story.
I wondered what it would be like to read the Word without chapters separating the thought. So I copied and pasted a few books into Word (cuz I have nothing better to do) and took out all the chapters and verse separations. AMAZING to see that I often don’t complete “the thought” because I stop at the chapter ends. It’s like when the chapter ends, I treat it as “well, that’s the end of that.” NOPE.
Great perspective, Rhonda. It used to flip me out to see preachers preach into another chapter. Now, it’s cool. It does make you wonder what led to some chapter breaks.
I’ve been doing the YouVersion reading through the Bible in a year. Scripture has come alive for me more this year than it ever has. I’ve loved seeing how the Lord teaches me on a daily basis. When we pause to see how what we are reading applies to us personally, He shows us.
I think we all do at some point. I think sometimes we get so caught up in reading it and studying it, that we son’t get quiet and listen to what God wants us to learn from it. Great reminder!
Thanks Tammy
I think sometimes we look too deeply into the (trees) to find meaning…our people need simple concepts…I don’t think God wanted it to be complicated. Jesus knew who He was teaching and told stories to teach that were applicable, the people were living these stories and just had to find the meaning in them that Jesus wanted them to… If we want our people to succeed in their Christian walk we need to come to their level of understanding, where they are at…
I definitely think we need people to look at the trees. But what they need to do is make sure that they are paining a picture of the forest. I heard a seminary professor put it this way: “I have a lot of stuff in the warehouse. But I don’t try to show everything that’s in the warehouse. I want them to see what’s in the show window.”