The Value of the Value of Repetition and Repeating Things

There are just a few simple things that have been the most helpful to me in trying to understand Scripture:

• Understanding the basic structure of a passage
• Having a basic understanding of the flow of biblical history (so that I can see where a particular passage "fits" into the overall story)
• Learning to ask good questions of a passage (which I wrote about earlier)
• Summarizing a passage in one coherent sentence
• Reading a passage several times

I want to address the last one - reading a passage several times.

Whenever you choose to spend time in the Word, purpose to read your passage at least three times, and preferably five times. Whether it's a big passage or a small passage, make reading it several times just part of your habit. And certainly, you can't read it too many times. Certainly, reading it one time is the way to get the least out of a passage, short of not reading it at all.

Through this practice, you will see things in the passage on the second, third, or fourth pass that you didn't see the first time. The first time you read something, you're focused more on the new words, phrasing, and more obvious parts of the passage. When you read it a second time, you already know where the passage is going, for the most part, and so your mind will naturally scour for new things, different angles, nuances, repeated ideas, and so on. Every time you read it again, you will pick up something new, or at least become convinced of the main points.

Scripture is a treasure trove! And we get more out of it by reading the passage before us more than one time. Why would we not want to get more out of it? And the time invested is not that much more, and certainly beneficial.

This also works for larger passages. I tried this some time ago for a pretty long passage - the entire book of Romans. I did not stop at any particular point to dig in deeper - I kept right on reading beginning to end, and then again. And as much as I've studied Romans in parts, I still saw new things in Romans I had never seen before, even though I've taught the book section by section. Now, all the parts make even more sense.

In your small groups and Sunday school classes, you might try this on occasion, when appropriate. There are many ways that we read Scripture in a small group, and we often butcher the passage in doing so. We either read too much to digest, we stumble over the words from reading aloud, or we stop at awkward places. How about reading the passage straight through one time, then either reading it again straight through, or just rereading each section as you intend to discuss it?

Another tip that helps: Read the same passage in more than one (good) translation. You get the benefit of repetition, but also the benefit of a few different words to address the same ideas. That broadens our understanding of a passage.

Hmmm ... I don't practice this reading technique in sermons. I'll have to think about how to do this without belaboring the message.

Rooted in Failure

After one of the World Series games last week, I listened to one of the players being interviewed, and he said one of the most profound things I've ever heard in a post-game interview. OK, OK ... the competition for profundity in pro athlete interviews is not the hardest competition in the world to win, but even so, it was a gem.

I didn't write down the exact quote, but the gist is this: "Baseball is rooted in failure." The team just won the game, bouncing back after a previous loss. But even after winning, that was his thought: baseball is rooted in failure. Sounds odd. But it's fantastic.

His point is this: The goal of training and playing the game is to push until you fail, learn from your failures, and then become better. Reaching your limit or facing an opponent who's stronger than you, "failing" in that sense, and then using failure to improve toward excellence. You reach the World Series by failing ... repeatedly ... even intentionally. Without failing, a team (or a player) will never become good enough to make it to the Series - you cannot reach excellence without failing. Keep pushing to point of failure ... then figure out how not to fail in that way again.

This is more than saying that failure is inevitable, so react well when it happens. It looks at failure not as an unwelcome, unavoidable guest, but something that should be sought out in order to be overcome. This player sees Failure as a useful tool towards excellence.

That's baseball. Or other sports. Or even business. And this player was not claiming to spout biblical truth for Christians to follow. But is there a lesson for followers of Christ in this? I think so.

First, this is not to say that we should push until we fail in sin, and then figure out not to sin next time. I'm not going in that direction at all.

Second, neither am I talking about trying to become more acceptable to God or more righteous. In Christ, we have Christ's 100% righteousness as our own and are perfectly accepted by God because of grace alone.

Third, I see Christians across the country afraid ... fearful! ... to take risks for the Kingdom of God because of a fear of failure. They avoid failure, and in order to avoid failure, they avoid risk. Here's the dirty little secret - that is failure!

Rather, we can look at excellence in advancing the Kingdom of God as something we can achieve only by pressing in the right directions until we "fail" by reaching our limit or facing challenges that are stronger than we are. And then we figure out why we failed, and then how to become better at our goal. We need not stay in mediocrity. And if we can see Failure as a useful tool towards excellence, we can in fact become more excellent at the mission Jesus gave us to do.

We can not succeed at all, of course, without the empowerment of the Spirit, but certainly we can became more capable vessels by seeing success to be rooted in failure.