Stephanie writes and asks this,

Hello, Pastor John, here's my question,

The older women in my life are concerned with the way I study the Bible.

They claim I take an academic approach to reading the Word of God,

but I'm afraid it's the only way I truly know how to.

Nothing makes me more excited than to connect the dots from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

With many different colored pins,

I highlight and underline verses and scribble notes about what God is revealing to me

and whatever blank spaces are available in my Bible.

I truly feel this is one of the ways I worship God

and I do feel the closest with Him while reading His Word

and watching His divine story unfold page by page.

They say I should be reading my Bible more devotionally, non-academicly.

They worry I am making more head-knowledge connections

rather than heart-changing connections.

Can an academic study of the Bible be God glorifying?

When I hear a question like this,

I want to crawl inside the heads of the older women

who have this concern about Stephanie

and I want to crawl inside Stephanie's head

as well to see what's really going on there.

It may be that I would want to be entirely on Stephanie's wavelength

...