“The wiser the Speaker became, the more he taught the people knowledge; many a maxim he pondered and examined and arranged. The Speaker’s aim was to find pleasing words, even as he set down plainly what was true. A wise man’s words are like goads, and his collected sayings are like nails driven home; they put the mind of one man into many a life.
Ecclesiastes 12:9-11
-James Moffatt
That passage, as written, is one of my standing favourite portions of scripture. In a world that is absorbed with personal experience and constantly assaulting humanity with electronic arts, this simple lesson in learning gets lost.
Everything we read; all the data we are inundated with has as it’s goal to put the spirit of the authors mind, into ours. It’s not just thoughts either. Like Ephesians chapter four teaches; we are to be renewed in the ‘SPIRIT of our minds .’ It’s not the thought that gets us into trouble, it’s the thinking.
If it’s true ‘we are what we eat’ ( and that’s just common sense) then it’s also true for our entire being; soul and spirit. On a negative side, this is seen plainly when people read ( for example) sexually explicit material. That author’s images have been placed inside of the reader’s soul. And, we all know there are some things you simply can’t un-see or un-know. Suffice it to say, there are many angles and levels to this dark perspective; everything from the nightly news to the internet.
In my own life, I’ve never bought anything online that I didn’t first go searching for; that I didn’t read the seller’s glowing description of and then actively MAKE a decision to BELIEVE the writer.
So it is with the Word of God. In a world driven by personal experience, I’d argue you do have an experience with God every time you look into The Book. I’m more determined to look into the Bible to find raw and unfiltered truth than I am willing to look into another souls interpretation and filtering of it. As helpful as other voices can be, It’s not that other spirit I want in my mind. To spin the passage above, just a bit, it’s That Speaker I want arranging truth in my life.