Some basics notes on a subject that confuses most Christians

I'll just talk to whoever's reading here... When I write about influences other than the Bible I am writing in the context of pedagogy. Many people who read Christian sites have yet to even connect with the Bible in a real way. They talk about BattleStar Galactica more than anything else, for instance. So I let them know there are influences they can find that will potentially develop them, and in so doing will lead them to the summit influences and even the above-summit-level influence that is the Word of God.

(By 'summit' what is implied is that influences reside in a hierarchy. Not all influences are created equal. Believe it or not it is a big development for a human being to get to where they can discern this fact. There are many professors of literature at old universities who can't see this and who take, for instance, the Iliad and a comic book to be basically at the same level, and will even write books based on this. The higher the influence the more rare it will be - many genre novels, few epic poems - and the more effort of attention will be required to engage it. And higher influences often have more and more mysterious authorship. Homer, Shakespeare are famous examples. They will also usually contain very refined language within them. I don't mean the language they were written in, I mean language of inner development, for instance. Even works of history such as the classical historians will have this. When you take in these languages you are given ability, through having the language - visual language often, but also language delivered in other subtle ways - to see things you otherwise wouldn't be able to see simply because you didn't have the 'vocabulary' to see them. Things in yourself, in the world, in the less visible realms. I.e. you get things from these higher influences that you don't realize at the time you are engaging them. It's the same with the Bible. And if you are worried about getting something 'bad' all I can say is Christians aren't cowards and we aren't dumb*****. We don't shy away from God's creation. But even having said that lower influences are pretty easy to identify. If you have the Spirit. Westcott and Hort for instance are easy to identify as abomination regarding being an influence. Dumb, evil crap is easy to discern. Great, higher influences are rare and they come rather massively vetted by Time as well. But if you're scared, then so be it. Some Christians are lions, some are mice; some are somewhere in-between.)

We need a balanced development physical, emotional, intellectual. Everybody has a center-of-gravity in one area and is weak in the others. When you develop areas that you are weak in you begin to develop - or give yourself the potential to develop - real understanding.

A person for instance with zero experience with literature (maybe they are strong on athletics or music or working with their hands but are not known for being seen reading great literature) is going to have a difficult time engaging the Word of God let alone valuing it. Of course the Holy Spirit plays a role here, but engaging the written word is engaging the written word. It doesn't happen by itself.

The act and effort to get a complete understanding of a work of literature develops understanding and develops skills.

This should all go without saying.

Take James White. He is ignorant of any literature that isn't secondary Christian material and the mutilated abomination he 'discerns' to be a Bible. This hamstrings him. This makes him shallow. This also makes him vain and prideful (not to mention an eternal juvenile delinquent) because he doesn't even know what he is missing or that there could be a possibility that he is missing something. He's a shallow boy, and it shows.

If you've never provoked your limits you've never made efforts to extend your limits.

This is why basic training in the military is so practically valuable at a foundational level even though it can be seen as a run of activities that are rather simple. It provokes the limits of young people who have never had their limits provokes and it teaches them things about themselves.

So when I speak of non-biblical influences I am speaking in a context of pedagogy. Not in a context of salvation.

The Bible can be understood by the simple ploughboy when the Spirit is present, but that also usually means the Spirit has inspired that ploughboy to go outside himself and his surroundings and find things like, for instance, BOOKS. To learn about language. Things he doesn't meet up with behind the plough. Maybe prior to that the Spirit inspired him to learn a musical instrument, and this too gives the ploughboy needed understading - in ways that defy easy description - to understand the Word of God.

This is how it works.

As for the Bible itself: just read it. Complete. Dedicated, complete readings. This is the foundational effort. All other kinds of Bible reading and studying are made profitable in the wake, or on the foundation, of this foundational effort. And put a number on it to make it a real goal so that you actually are doing it and not just 'thinking' you are doing it while never doing it. Once, three times, seven times. How about seven times doubled? That's a number for a king...