March through Colossians - whole book

If you've been following along in the reading schedule, this will be the 3rd time now that you've read through the whole book of Colossians in one sitting. I hope you are benefiting from this, much like the original hearers/readers of Colossians would have benefited when the letter was read to them (no doubt in its entirety), or perhaps when they had occasion to read it themselves.

I came across this great anecdote a while back on another blog. The quote is from a work by James Gray (1851-1935) called How to Master the English Bible. It appears that he has much to say in this book that is helpful, and let's not get on him too much for his title (most certainly our primary goal should be to be mastered by the Bible, but we would do well to have a goal of mastering the special revelation God has given to us). Here's the anectdote:

"The first practical help I ever received in the mastery of the English Bible was from a layman. We were fellow-attendants at a certain Christian conference or convention and thrown together a good deal for several days, and I saw something in his Christian life to which I was a comparative stranger—peace, a rest, a joy, a kind of spiritual poise I knew little about. One day I ventured to ask him how he had become possessed of the experience, when he replied, 'By reading the epistle to the Ephesians.' I was surprised, for I had read it without such results, and therefore asked him to explain the manner of his reading, when he related the following: He had gone into the country to spend the Sabbath with his family on one occasion, taking with him a pocket copy of Ephesians, and in the afternoon, going out into the woods and lying down under a tree, he began to read it; he read it through at a single reading, and finding his interest aroused, read it through again in the same way, and, his interest increasing, again and again. I think he added that he read it some twelve or fifteen times, 'and when I arose to go into the house,' said he, 'I was in possession of Ephesians, or better yet, it was in possession of me, and I had been "lifted up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus‚" in an experimental sense in which that had not been true in me before, and will never cease to be true in me again.'"

3:1-4 tomorrow.