| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index |
Frequent
Reading of the Bible
On February 11
1962
Parade
Magazine published the following brief account -- itself a commentary on
artificial motivation.
Still Munching Candy
At the village church in
Kalonovka
Russia
attendance at Sunday school picked up after the priest
started handing out candy to the peasant children. One of the most faithful was
a pug-nosed
pugnacious lad who recited his Scriptures with proper piety
pocketed his reward
then fled into the fields to munch on it.
The priest took a liking
to the boy
persuaded him to attend church school. This was preferable to doing
household chores from which his devout parents excused him. By offering other
inducements
the priest managed to teach the boy the four Gospels. In fact
he
won a special prize for learning all four by heart and reciting them nonstop in
church. Now
60 years later
he still likes to recite Scriptures
but in a
context that would horrify the old priest. For the prize pupil
who memorized
so much of the Bible
is Nikita Khrushchev
the former Communist czar.
As this anecdote
illustrates
the "why" behind memorization is fully as important as
the "what". The same Nikita Khrushchev who nimbly mouthed God's Word
when a child
later declared God to be nonexistent -- because his cosmonauts
had not seen Him. Khrushchev memorized the Scriptures for the candy
the
rewards
the bribes
rather than for the meaning it had for his life.
Artificial motivation will produce artificial results.
Parade Magazine
February 11
1962.
While studying in the Holy
Lands
a seminary professor of mine met a man who claimed to have memorized the
Old Testament--in Hebrew! Needless to say
the astonished professor asked for a
demonstration. A few days late they sat together in the man's home. "Where
shall we begin?" asked the man. "Psalm 1
" replied my professor
who was an avid student of the psalms. Beginning with Psalm 1:1
the man began
to recite from memory
while my professor followed along in his Hebrew Bible.
For two hours the man continued word for word without a mistake as the
professor sat in stunned silence. When the demonstration was over
my professor
discovered something even more astonishing about the man--he was an atheist!
Here was someone who knew the Scriptures better than most Christians ever will
and yet he didn't even believe in God.
Jack Kuhatschek
Taking
The Guesswork Out of Applying The Bible
IVP
1991
p. 16.