Over the past couple of years I have heard a few random people start a sentence with words like, "What's important in life is," then complete the sentence with something like, "family," or, "giving and receiving love," or something of that nature. I always hate when I hear that because it could either be something that is mostly true or it could be self-serving garbage, and it is hard to tell which. I tend to think that the person making the statement is being self-serving without realizing it. Fair or not, that's where my mind goes. The following are the arguments the statement being true and for the statement being hooey.
Why it may be true
The reason a statement like, "What's important in life is family," sounds noble is that it implies loyalty and sacrifice. While family should not take the place of God, the family unit is the main means that God has chosen to illustrate our relationship with Him. Furthermore, leading or caring for a significant other and/or family represents the greatest responsibility most people will ever have. For many people the purpose of their lives is tied up in their family.
Likewise, I believe that love if it is defined properly is more or less synonymous with sacrifice. God is love and God showed His love in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Love isn't about emotional responses, but about what I am willing to do for someone else. I love my family because of what I would sacrifice for their well-being rather than because I get the warm fuzzies when I think about them.
If you say that the important thing about life is love, and by love you mean selflessly sacrificing yourself for the cause of Someone greater than yourself, then I agree. If you say that one of the most important things about life is growing in your relationship with God through your relationship with your family and the sacrifices that entails, then I agree.
Why it's probably hooey
The problem is that a lot of people determine things are important because they desire it for themselves. If someone said that the purpose of life is sex (forget the reproduction argument for a moment), most would assume that person was allowing his or her own desires to mess with his or her sense of proportion. This would be the same if someone decided that the purpose of life is notoriety, wealth, good looks, or excitement. They are all so obviously self-serving that, while anyone is free to believe that one or more of these things are the central focus of life, society will not let them act noble about it. That's kind of how I feel about putting love or family in this list.
If someone says that love is what is important in life because they desire love from others, that is a bit self-serving. If family is important, not because they are worth sacrificing for, but because it looks good when you show up to church or other social events together as a cohesive unit, that is a bit self-serving.
If you are a Christian who believes in and agrees with what the Bible says, you do not have the option of making the purpose of your life be self-serving. The common thread in the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments is that those who God accepts are those who surrender, sacrifice, and humble themselves out of fear and reverence. Therefore, what is important in life is the opposite of satisfying our desires. It is rather surrender, sacrifice, and humility before God.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Saturday, January 08, 2011
structured learning
This past week I joined a few people in my church in starting a schedule of chronologically reading through the Bible in 112 days. This is something that I resisted at first, but that I decided I would start with the caveat that I would drop it if it became too much of a burden. So far the reading has been less involved than I expected, and it has required less time overall than the reading and homework I had to do most semesters when I was taking MBA classes. Life is busy, though, so I am not entirely convinced I will complete this.
The last time I tried a structured Bible reading program I was in junior high. I don't believe I finished, but my memory of the process is spotty. I have never been an extremely fast reader, and it was very hard to catch up when I got behind (which will happen at some point during every reading program if you don't read ahead). It was hard enough to focus on the content of what I was reading when I did a day's reading, but if I tried to read multiple days' worth of reading speed was a higher priority than understanding what I was reading. Even then I knew this defeated the purpose of reading through the Bible. This is a big reason why I am wary of structured reading plans.
The first time I actually read all of the way through the Bible and understood most of what I read was around my sophomore year in high school. I took more than a year going through it at that time and I used a study Bible so that I would have a better context for what I was reading. Furthermore, when I did spend a large block of time reading the Bible it was because I was interested in what I was reading rather than because I had to complete the scheduled reading for last month, so I retained what I read better. The success I saw with the more unstructured reading further influenced my opinions regarding the best way for me to read the Bible.
Because of this experience, I am actually a bit wary of the other ways that I have heard pushed to read the Bible as well. Reading the Bible a little each day is a great way to stay on top of reading if your life can be structured in that way. I think that saying that that is the standard for Bible reading is ridiculous, though. Bible reading is important if it is effective, and if a specific structure or plan for reading the Bible does not work for someone then pushing it on them is not helpful. It will only discourage them from reading Scripture in the future.
Ultimately, the reason I decided on this Bible reading plan was that I found I was coming up with excuses not to read a lot of the passages in the Old Testament, so I figured if I had the motivation of discussing what I was reading with others who were reading it the reading might not be so much of a burden. I do not want to diminish the value of the Old Testament, but much of it can be dry and difficult to trudge through, such as Exodus, Leviticus, and stretches of the two books of Chronicles (which open with nine solid chapters of genealogies).
I found a story in the New York Times today that I felt paralleled this a bit. The College Board is in the process of revising the coursework associated with advanced placement classes because some of the classes had so much material the classes were more focused on memorization than discovery. If you know my philosophy on education, which was formed based on experiences like what I just described, you know that I like these changes. Allowing the student to learn through self-directed means rather than forcing him or her through a rigid set of steps will ultimately cause that student to retain more knowledge and discover how to learn new things. For people like myself, if you take the discovery process from Scripture reading, then they will not want to read it and they will only learn what they have to. That is true for all other learning as well.
The last time I tried a structured Bible reading program I was in junior high. I don't believe I finished, but my memory of the process is spotty. I have never been an extremely fast reader, and it was very hard to catch up when I got behind (which will happen at some point during every reading program if you don't read ahead). It was hard enough to focus on the content of what I was reading when I did a day's reading, but if I tried to read multiple days' worth of reading speed was a higher priority than understanding what I was reading. Even then I knew this defeated the purpose of reading through the Bible. This is a big reason why I am wary of structured reading plans.
The first time I actually read all of the way through the Bible and understood most of what I read was around my sophomore year in high school. I took more than a year going through it at that time and I used a study Bible so that I would have a better context for what I was reading. Furthermore, when I did spend a large block of time reading the Bible it was because I was interested in what I was reading rather than because I had to complete the scheduled reading for last month, so I retained what I read better. The success I saw with the more unstructured reading further influenced my opinions regarding the best way for me to read the Bible.
Because of this experience, I am actually a bit wary of the other ways that I have heard pushed to read the Bible as well. Reading the Bible a little each day is a great way to stay on top of reading if your life can be structured in that way. I think that saying that that is the standard for Bible reading is ridiculous, though. Bible reading is important if it is effective, and if a specific structure or plan for reading the Bible does not work for someone then pushing it on them is not helpful. It will only discourage them from reading Scripture in the future.
Ultimately, the reason I decided on this Bible reading plan was that I found I was coming up with excuses not to read a lot of the passages in the Old Testament, so I figured if I had the motivation of discussing what I was reading with others who were reading it the reading might not be so much of a burden. I do not want to diminish the value of the Old Testament, but much of it can be dry and difficult to trudge through, such as Exodus, Leviticus, and stretches of the two books of Chronicles (which open with nine solid chapters of genealogies).
I found a story in the New York Times today that I felt paralleled this a bit. The College Board is in the process of revising the coursework associated with advanced placement classes because some of the classes had so much material the classes were more focused on memorization than discovery. If you know my philosophy on education, which was formed based on experiences like what I just described, you know that I like these changes. Allowing the student to learn through self-directed means rather than forcing him or her through a rigid set of steps will ultimately cause that student to retain more knowledge and discover how to learn new things. For people like myself, if you take the discovery process from Scripture reading, then they will not want to read it and they will only learn what they have to. That is true for all other learning as well.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
julie and julia?
Netflix has a section in their site called "Top picks for..." where it lists ten movies, TV series, or whatever that you might like based on your ratings for other movies and recent movies that you have added to your queue or rated. When I visited this section in my Netflix page tonight noticed that Julie & Julia is listed. That makes no sense. I am the first to admit that there are "chick flicks" that I like more than Golden does (What Women Want, Hitch, and Little Black Book to name a few), but those movies all have things that a standard genre piece doesn't have. What Women Want is appealing because I appreciated the insight it brought, Hitch was genuinely funny, and Little Black Book dared to break the standard formula for how a rom-com should end. Julia & Julia, though? What could possibly be in that movie that I would find appealing? This is especially odd because I have been impressed lately with how accurate Netflix is in predicting movies that I would like compared to Blockbuster.
I double-checked the filmography for the director, the genres that the movie is listed under, and the movie description, and there is nothing there that should appeal to me in any way. No offense to those who like the movie. It just doesn't sound like my thing. To be fair, the rest of the recommended movies are more up my alley (three comedies, three sci-fis, two animated, and a psychological thriller), so it's probably a simple miss.
I said all that to ask a simple question. Have you ever been recommended a movie (either through electronic or interpersonal means) that in no way matched the sort of movie you would be interested in? I'm not really asking about a movie you didn't like but you normally like the genre. I mean there was no possibility you would have ever liked the movie because you don't even like the genre. Did it impact the way you thought about that person or electronic system?
I double-checked the filmography for the director, the genres that the movie is listed under, and the movie description, and there is nothing there that should appeal to me in any way. No offense to those who like the movie. It just doesn't sound like my thing. To be fair, the rest of the recommended movies are more up my alley (three comedies, three sci-fis, two animated, and a psychological thriller), so it's probably a simple miss.
I said all that to ask a simple question. Have you ever been recommended a movie (either through electronic or interpersonal means) that in no way matched the sort of movie you would be interested in? I'm not really asking about a movie you didn't like but you normally like the genre. I mean there was no possibility you would have ever liked the movie because you don't even like the genre. Did it impact the way you thought about that person or electronic system?
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