Learning the Bible

Today I had the pleasure of a lengthy discussion with a former student at Friends who is now in graduate school. These discussions are a tremendous joy as I am able to see how the time at Friends is now maturing as they become more than they were and begin to take on an understanding of who they are and how they fit in the world.

Today's discussion focused on the Pendulum effect of learning. So much of our learning is like a pendulum, we take one position and later begin to learn another perspective that is dissimilar. We abandon our previous position and swing to the other side. Thus our world goes like the pendulum of a clock. The difficult part is realizing that when we are at either end of the pendulum swing we are still under the influence of the other position as it pulls us back. Only after time do we learn to balance the tension between the two positions.

The main question is really, what keeps us from falling off the pendulum and crashing down? Is there an authority higher than reason? Do we actually have something that can solve the pendulum swing paradigm?

Since this is the 'biblemanblog" you can already predict the answer. The purpose of the Scriptures is to provide a standard that lets a person have distinct positions and evaluate them against something beyond themselves. The Scriptures provides a centering purpose for our lives, if we will let it. Too often we use the Scriptures to support us on the extremes and keep us from falling.

Here's to solving the Pendulum Paradigm.