LEARNING!

Some time ago I came into possession of a second-hand book. Law’s Empire, by the noted legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin. (Why I am reading legal philosophy is another story.) I got it off eBay’s half.com for $6.53. I expected it to be in poor shape. It was!

It had obviously been in the hands of a reader who treated books like I did. To put it mildly, it was annotated. (“Desecrated” was the other word that came to mind.) Armed with the formidable weapons of pen and pencil and highlighters (yellow and blue), the owner emeritus of Law’s Empire had—and I’ll say this for that person—read the book thoroughly!

Oh, well! That’s what you get for six bucks, I figured, resigning myself to overwriting the other’s marginalia with my own interjections of wisdom. Perhaps I could use another color. Purple? Pink?

As I began plowing my way through the dense tome (it was written by a lawyer, after all), I realized another thing. Whoever the previous owner was, that one knew his/her stuff; probably a law student. The annotations were crisp, precise, and, to my puzzled mind, a beacon of light on Dworkin’s otherwise cryptic verbiage. It was like I was reading both RD and AA (Anonymous Annotator) at the same time. Often they agreed, sometimes they fought, occasionally AA was baffled (Whew! I wasn’t the only one!), frequently AA added comments and glosses that clarified everything.

What a blessing it was to have a commentator!

Even more of a blessing it is, to have available to us so much help with Scripture. Just this week, a trip to the library and a glance at some commentaries helped me to polish off a sermon I was working on. I am indeed thankful for all the dedicated scholarship that has gone into the making of books on the Bible. Two millennia or more of hard work by scholars. Fancy that, I get to take advantage of two thousand plus years of the Holy Spirit’s illumination of men and women wiser than I, godlier than I. We, living in the twenty-first century, are the privileged recipients of the distilled wisdom of the ages.

What a blessing, indeed! How much we learn from others!

And then there are those who labor daily in our churches—pastors, Sunday School teachers, leaders of groups (small/big; young/old), and many others of that brave ilk—to expound God’s Word to us. Their wisdom and their knowledge and their love for the flock, make the Word come alive in our hearts, as they, relying on the Holy Spirit, pour out truth that has already been at work in their own lives.

What a magnificent blessing! Praise God for their obedience to the commandment to …

… preach the word …
2 Timothy 4:2

Spare a prayer for these diligent and godly ones, won’t you? May they be given much grace to persevere in this hard work for God’s glory. These are worthy ones.

… worthy
of double honor,
especially those who work hard
at preaching and teaching.
1 Timothy 5:17

And not only that, not only are we to pray for them and honor them, we are to follow them as well.

Remember those who led you,
who spoke the word of God to you;
… imitate their faith.
Hebrews 13:7

We follow them, so that our lives may be commentaries on Scripture to others. Those are the best kind. Commentaries that are walking, living, breathing, and showing Christ. So that our leaders, like Paul, can affirm …

You are our letter …
known and read by all men …
a letter of Christ.
2 Corinthians 3:2–3