Study

This week I practiced the spiritual discipline of study.  I was excited about encountering this discipline.  I myself love to study Scripture.  I learned of four formal steps to study: repetition, concentration, comprehension and reflection.  The fifth element of study is not a particular task, but rather a particular mindset, and that is, humility.  I felt most convicted by the task of concentration.  I love thinking deeply about scripture, but perhaps my greatest downfall is simply staying focused long enough to be productive.  Foster delved into some fascinating discussion on taking the principle of study and into our relationships.  I was challenged to observe, not judgmentally, but pedagogically my relationships, and my motives for my interactions with others.
  Finally, Foster addressed the fact of how we are influenced by the mediums of culture that we absorb and inadvertantly "study."  I love his words of a firm wake-up call.
  "Now when I speak of mind pollution I am not thinking only of 'bad' books, films and so on, but of mediocre books and films.  You see unless we set before ourselves a 'habitual vision of greatness' we will surely degenerate."
  I agree with Foster that our culture has set low standards in regard to literature, entertainment, and the other mediums that we study in our lives. I feel like often Christians are not holding themselves to a high enough standard in their consumerism.  We should seek the best things, not just mediocre things.

My plan in practicing the discipline was to answer the study questions at the end of the chapter on study to better understand what study means.  I also reread the text and the workbook, gaining an analytical understanding of this analytical discipline.  I also planned to "study" a portion of my life, that being my relationships.
It took me awhile (like 6 days) to finally dig into a passage and study it.  With the suggestion of my teacher, I read 1 Cor. 13.  I read it again.  And again.  I have already read this passage many times in my life, and I just read it, hoping to find something new.  I finally focused on verse seventeen.     "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1 Corinthians 13:7 ESV)   
   Here is a bullet-list of my observations:

• Why does love sound like a person?  Can an idea 'bear' something?
• Is it a word used for God?
• Love is not another spiritual gift, but a quality that EVERYONE needs
• The body of Christ needs different 'body parts' 
• perhaps blood is to the body as love is to the church

• The Corinthian Church was facing several problems which Paul addressed

• discussions over Christian preachers
• Issues of Sexual immorality
• marriage, widows, food sacrificed to idols
• worship issues
• spiritual gifts

I scanned the book of Corinthians for the word "love" in places other than chapter 13.  I found only one reference to love before chapter 13, I Cor. 8:2-3,
       Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
   (1 Corinthians 8:1-3 ESV)
 This verse shows knowledge in comparison to love, something our 'love passage' will do.  Right after the 'love passage,' love is mentioned in I Cor. 14:1, "Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy." (1 Corinthians 14:1 ESV)
This merely reaffirms the previous section on how love was greater than the other spiritual gifts.  Finally, love is mentioned again at the end of the book, "If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!" (1 Corinthians 16:22 ESV)
  This text helps us understand that our identity is in our love for one another.  It is the answer to our dissensions in the church-loving each other.  I feel like in a lot of my relationships I have sought to love myself, and not put others first.  For me, having love isn't the problem; the problem is how my love is oriented toward myself and not others.
   Study brings valuable insight to one's life.