Even though I did not grow up in church, I joined a Southern Baptist church in junior high. Not long afterwards, I got involved in the Jesus and Charismatic movements. Even though I have learned much from those environments, I do remember hearing some profound things said by Baptist pastors.
My first pastor was Howard Boyd, who was a truck driver that became a preacher. He once said, "It doesn't matter how many times you have been through the Bible - what matters is how many times the Bible has been through you."
What did he mean by this?
At the time, another Baptist pastor was getting some attention for having memorized the entire Bible. This prompted a discussion among the youth at the church as to how he could do that, and all the time involved. Several said they hadn't even read through Bible even once. That's when Pastor Boyd said what he did.
What he meant was that no matter how many times you have read the Bible cover-to-cover, what does matter is how many times the Bible has exposed something in you that needs to be dealt with.
Several years later, even though I was Spirit-filled, I attended another Baptist church because I believed that was where God wanted me. Pastor Gary Cook once talked about wisdom and morality. He said that as a young man, he made decisions based only on right and wrong, but things wouldn't go well afterwards. Then he started making decisions on what was the wisest thing to do in the situation, and he got better results. He didn't have to worry about the morality of his decisions either, for a wise decision will always be morally right.
Hmm, something to gnaw on...
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