Lesson 6 | The Fifth Pass: Savor
Head, Heart, and Hands
The Bible is a hot Thanksgiving dinner.
The Bible is warm apple pie with a dry crumbly topping and ice cream melting down the sides.
The Bible is a steaming mug of coffee, or tea, or hot chocolate.
We are children going through a growth spurt, hungry, needing to grow.
We are prisoners who’ve been fed on bread and water our whole lives.
We are people who stumble out of a blizzard into a warm, bright home.
And when we open up the Bible, God is bringing his provision and us together. We sit at the table. We pick up a fork. We lift the mug with trembling hands. The result is nourishment, pleasure, satisfaction. O taste and see that the LORD is good!
God forbid that we shovel our food down without tasting it, rushing to get to something important. God forgive us for pushing away plate after plate uneaten. God help us not to whine about the taste of his perfect cooking.
How to savor the Scriptures
The Fifth Pass will help us to eat God’s message rightly. In it, we pause to savor the sweetness of Scripture. We take a few minutes to think, to pray, to confess sin, to worship. We look at each individual dish God has prepared, and then step back to look at the whole table as well.
A good place to record your thoughts is in a notes tab.
The fuel to feed your thoughts should be your specific phrase, including the main points all the way to the left margin, the coordinate phrases you’ve identified, the labels you’ve given to subordinate phrases, and so on.
God told Israel in Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Jesus called this “the great and first commandment” (Matt 22:38). Our first concern in applying Scripture should be, “How can this passage help me better love God with all my heart, soul, and mind?”
These three faculties roughly correspond with a phrase that has influenced my thinking, although I don’t know its original source: “Head, Heart, Hands.” I suggest that you use these three headings to organize your thoughts in this pass.
Here is a description of the focus of each category, and some questions to ask yourself under these headings.
Head
Focus: The focus of this section is the life of the mind. We want to think accurately according to the truth of God’s Word we’ve phrased.
Questions: How should I think differently about God/myself/others because of what I’ve just phrased? What doctrines are taught in this passage? What specific contribution to those doctrines does this passage make? What other Scripture texts add to the truths taught in this passage?
Heart
Focus: The focus of this section is the life of the emotions. We want to feel accurately according to the truth of God’s Word we’ve phrased.
Questions: How should I feel differently about God/myself/etc. because of what I’ve just phrased? What emotions are expressed in this passage? What emotions does this passage exhort me to feel?
Hands
Focus: The focus of this section is the life of the will. We want to act accurately according to the truth of God’s Word we’ve phrased.
Questions: How should I act differently because of what I’ve just phrased? What motivations does this passage give for acting differently? What sins do I need to repent of and put off? What good works do I need to put on?
After you’ve answered some of these questions, take time to organize your answers and thoughts into clear applications. And not for someone else’s life—for your life! Write down how you should think, feel, and act differently today because of the passage you’ve phrased.
No matter how much time you spend doing this, it will not be wasted. That’s what time is for, after all—for savoring the glory of God in Jesus Christ so as to be transformed into his image!
