If you think back to your elementary school days, you'll probably remember your teacher calling out the phrase 'reading comprehension' a lot when asking you to summarize a text from a book. Reading comprehension is defined as the ability to process text, understand its meaning, and to integrate with what the reader already knows. This is one of the most valuable skills that you learn as a student and how well you master it can have a huge impact on your life.
This blog aims to help you (and me) continue to develop our reading comprehension skills so that we can (1) process what the Bible says, (2) understand what God wants us to know and (3) determine how we can apply that new-found knowledge to our everyday lives in practical ways. Increasing our reading comprehension skills will help to increase our faith by allowing us to break down the Word of God in ways that are easy to understand AND remember (cause if you don't remember or at least know where to go to find the answer, you'll have a harder time trying to put it into action).
I wanted to break down a quick study on 2 Corinthians 10:5 that I did one morning. I've gotten into the habit of always starting my study by looking at the verse in the King James Version of the Bible. This version (KJV) was first published in 1611 and helped to bring the Word to the masses. It's a great starting point for helping to you to be able to break down what God is saying to you. Let's take a look at this text and I'll show you my process in how I broke it down to apply to my life.
2 Corinthians 10:5 (KJV) - "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge or God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ".
To help me break it down, I take 'big' words and look up their definitions so that I can understand the true intentions. One great app to download is the BlueLetterBible app. In this app, you're able to highlight text and look up the definitions of words and names. One of the best functions of the app is the access to the Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) interlinear (direct translations of the words from the language in which they were written).
Below is a chart of the definitions of the words of this scripture passage that I looked up for clarity. Since this text comes from the New Testament, the interlinear translations are in Greek because that is the language these books of the Bible were written in.
* Note that words in bold under the 'Greek Translation' section are my further breakdown of the text.
Putting all of this together I came up with the "KFerg" translation of this scripture.
"Throw forcefully all of my own personal 'KFerg' thoughts and logic, and everything that I've let get so big/high in my mind that it overshadows what I know to be true about God and His nature/love/character. Imprison/lock-up every thought so that I can fully follow Christ's directives."
So where does 'shot put' come in? Did you that the sport of shot put is when an individual tries to 'put' (or as I like to think throw) a heavy-weighted ball as far as they can. You 'put' the ball by holding it to your neck and try to push it out into the air as far as you can. Isn't that just what the scripture is telling us to do? Take your heavy-weighted ball (your sinful, lustful, inappropriate, hateful, bitter, jealous, lazy, envious, etc. thoughts) and throw them as far as you can away from you so that you so that you are free from what has been weighing you down and can fully commit to following Christ!
I've included a link to a great video to show an example of what 'shot put' looks like. I love how the instructor points out how you have to "twist out quickly to throw the shot". Throw those negative thoughts as far and fast as you can. Be blessed!
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