Day 19 - Study?

Luke 2:46-47
After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. (NIV)
                  They found the boy Jesus after three days.  Can you imagine knowing that your child is the Messiah born to a virgin of the Holy Spirit and letting him get out of your site?  I don’t want to be critical of Mary nor Joseph at all because I can’t understand their situation.  But my first thought is that I would want to treat this boy as precious cargo.  I would want to protect Him and keep Him and know that He is ok.  On the other hand, we know that Mary was fully aware of Jesus’ ability to perform miracles because she didn’t hesitate to ask Him to create more wine out of the blue for the wedding at Cana.  So, maybe the little boy Jesus had already revealed to them His power by walking on the water of his bathtub or raising the pet dog back to life.  I don’t know.  The Bible does say they were anxious when they realized he was not with them. Now, that is something I do understand-the panic that races through your veins when your six-year-old has decided to hide in one of the rings of hanging clothing at Dillard’s (Thanks Zach for scaring me to death😊).
                  For three days, Jesus was studying, sitting with teachers, asking questions, learning.  And for three days, His family was oblivious.  When you decide to be a true student of the Word, don’t expect your current circle of friends and family to follow you.  Maybe they will, but more than likely, this is something you will have to do without many of the people that you hang around with now. 
                  Our society is not a studying society.  We are not honed to study.  Kids play thousands of hours of video games, but to read five pages in a book overwhelms them.  It is too boring.  It is too tedious.  It is too plain, too bland.  Now, to watch a movie about it, they would do that.  We are not a reading society.  We are a watching society.  The problem with being a watching society is that we don’t have to work through anything on our own.  I loved the movie “The Passion.”  It was so well done.  But I have struggled since when reading the crucifixion story of allowing those images to fill my mind.  But the movie depicts how someone else envisioned what happened.  I want the Lord to reveal to me through my own mind’s eye how things went down in a way that reveals more to me about my Lord.  I don’t want to watch a movie about Jesus’ washing the disciple’s feet.  When I use my own mind to work through the scenes as the Holy Spirit leads me, He can reveal things to me that might have remained unnoticed. 
                  When our society does read, very little reading is done to learn.  The romance novels with Fabio on the cover entertain and capture imaginations.  John Grisham can make us feel the intensity through the ink and pages.  But this is not learning.  This is entertainment.  The Bible is not always entertaining though it is quite shocking and mesmerizing at times.  If you are going to start studying the Scripture, don’t be surprised if there are pressures to steal your time.  When you want to study, your friends are all going out to have a night on the town.  When you want to study, your spouse is going to want you to sleep late.  When you want to study, the devil will remind you of a million other things you need to do or just want to do.  It may be hard to have an accountability partner.  I am not talking about going to a class once a week to learn.  I am talking about studying what you learned every day between classes.
                  Let’s be about our Father’s business.  The Lord has called us to run the business, not to simply be clients.  If I am going to run my Father’s business, I had better study the earnings reports and the profit loss sheets.  I had better understand the system of gathering orders and shipping them out.  I need to study the schedule of employees.  I need to know the tax code.  I need to understand the ins and outs of the business.  If I don’t study the Father’s business, my Christianity will look more like Chris Farley in Tommy Boy than someone who has study and showed themselves approved.  When we don’t study the Father’s business, we can do more damage than good.
                  Let’s not do Christianity like everyone else.  Let’s pursue wisdom.  Let’s study hard.  Even though few people actually study the Bible, let’s do it.  Get a study Bible that helps with the culture, the original language and wrestle with the text and the Holy Spirt until you have a deeper understanding of the Father’s business.