Eccl 12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Although I don’t have a high reading level, I used to love to curl up with a good book. Now with more age, trying in vain to keep up with my daily Bible study (4 chapters a day) and the busy-ness of my life, reading is a lot of work. I have been reading a book about Hudson Taylor, and it’s taking forever. No rush though, every page is a blessing, just like Bible reading. Jesus never said read or study a lot or to be a fast reader. He said to follow Him, to love Him and others unconditionally. To go and make disciples. Sure, we need to read the Word, and other things, but the priority is serving the Lord. Not everyone is called to be a Bible teacher or a theologian.
I know many people whose ‘much study’ is leading them away from the Lord. I noticed it in seminary, I didn’t have the time, energy or compassion anymore to do what I was called by the Lord to do, to serve the least of these. I learned to argue a lot. I remember (with remorse) being curt with my little children, or neighbor’s children when they interrupted my daily devotions and my vain attempts to ‘read the Bible through in a year’ time.
I know several great men and women of God who got so into studying things like the grey area of psychiatry that I don’t even recognize anymore. I know seminary students who turned their back on the Lord and started doing drugs or going off into armed conflicts. I knew a Bible teacher that when a student wanted to ask him a question he’d set his watch for a minute, converse, and when that minute was up, the talk was over.
I come from Calvary Chapel, where the emphasis is in reading. Reading the Bible, studying the Bible, reading Chuck books or other famous Christian authors. All great stuff! But never should it be at the risk of not serving others personally. In the states CC pastors like to recommend books from their book stores. It’s ok, but there’s nothing like one on one communication.
Down here, reading levels are far less than mine even, so throwing intellectual books at the people we are serving just doesn’t cut it. In fact it’s negligence to our calling of being a pastor or a missionary.
Not only religious study but secular study. Most of what we learned in high school or college we learned just enough to pass a test, then forgotten. Worst yet, most of the ‘stuff’ I was forced to memorize in high school isn’t even relevant today, or often times not even true.
My best subject in high school was world history. Got straight C’s. 9 years later, I saw my little sister’s take home world history test. Her answers were all wrong compared to what I was forced to memorize just nine years earlier. Trillions of years became millions in just 9 short years. Trillion miles became Zillion miles. All the world history books I found out were completely changed every couple of years because their ‘facts’ kept changing.
Today is worse than ever to try to study something. People tell me to ‘research’ presidential candidates, politics, wars, diseases, world history and problems. But where? There is no complete, agenda-less truth either written or verbal any more (except for in the Lord and in His Word).
Since Adam and Eve, 6,000 years ago, Satan (the father of lies) has been in control of this world. And the lies and evil of Satan is getting exponentially worse. I would say that if you ‘studied’ a political candidate for 24 hours straight, you MIGHT get ten percent of the truth. Medical or Polling Statistics? Using every news source, google, social media etc. you STILL might not get any truth. IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHO PAID FOR THE STATISTICAL RESEARCH TO BE DONE. Social media, news, google, everything else in the world, is polluted with the lies of the ‘prince of the air’ (also known as father of lies). The present ruler of this world.
Schools, education, books, magazines, worthless worldly advice are all deceptive. Where do we go to refresh our minds, and to get away from all this much wearisome ‘study’?? To God through prayer, TRUE CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP and the Word of God. Study means to ‘intentionally apply yourself’. Intentionally apply yourself to serve the Lord, to follow His examples, to be a blessing to others, to evangelize, to be a good testimony. The world is sinking fast.
Apply yourself, your thoughts and your actions to others and to the Lord. It doesn’t require tons of studying, reading and homework. It requires intentionally being plugged in to a body of Bible believing evangelical Christians, seeking the Lord and His will. We do study the Bible as well in the original sense. Bottom line. We DO STUDY the Bible to learn Biblical principles of course, so we can better learn to SERVE PEOPLE. We never study the Bible to be puffed up!
2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.