Wednesday, July 15, 2015

25 Signs You Might Be a Scripture Nerd

You might be a scripture nerd if:
  1. You have highlighters, pens, colored pencils, and pencils to mark your scriptures with and you still want MORE!
  2. You get excited when you find a new way to mark your scriptures.
  3. Your scriptures are a rainbow of color on just about every page and have margins full of tiny notes (or oodles of sticky notes full of insights).*
  4. You consider a scripture journal essential to your study.
  5. You’re on your nth scripture journal.
  6. You love scripture chasing to a particular reference that is cited by a speaker.
  7. You dream of playing Scripture Golf ** with the stake high counsel
  8. You have played Scripture Golf with the stake high counsel.
  9. Someone gives a scripture reference and you automatically know what it says without having to look it up.
  10. You read scripture commentaries for fun and relaxation.
  11. You read a scripture commentary and you get a little miffed they didn’t include some insights you consider extra important.
  12. You have written a scripture commentary.
  13. You have applied for a job that would involve teaching from the scriptures.
  14. You get excited whenever the Isaiah chapters come up in Sunday school.
  15. You get excited anytime someone quotes Isaiah and gives a good insight about it.
  16. You can’t imagine not spending time in the scriptures every day.
  17. Someone says something about trying to get into a habit of reading the scriptures every day and you find yourself thinking, “Why would anyone skip scripture study?”
  18. You catch all the scriptural allusions in classical literature. 
  19. Along with catching the scriptural allusions, you know where they are quoting from.
  20. You enjoy searching the internet to see what everybody else has said about various scriptural passages.
  21. You own other versions of the Bible besides the King James Version or have consulted them online.
  22. You own an exhaustive concordance or have consulted one online.
  23. You find yourself doing translation and word studies even though you don’t actually understand ancient languages.
  24. You consider the Topical Guide to be somewhat limited in scope and dream of making your own index.
  25. You have studied ancient languages specifically so that you can understand your scriptures better.
Postscript – Some of the above are not true for me or are only partially true, so I am not the complete scripture nerd.  Also, some, like playing scripture golf with the stake high council are tongue-in-cheek.

* Alternatively, your scriptures may not be a rainbow of color and full of marginal notes, but that’s just because you’ve recently gotten a new set of scriptures again and you prefer to mark them organically rather than just transferring all your markings.

** Scripture golf – a competition in which one person reads a verse from anywhere in scripture and others try to guess the correct book and chapter that it came from.  Extra points are awarded if the correct verse number is given.


Rozy Lass said...

I'm not a complete nerd, but a pretty big one. Supporting scriptures come into my mind when listening to a speaker or teacher and I often wonder why they don't turn to the scriptures themselves. Sigh! I have loved the scriptures for as long as I can remember.

Michaela Stephens said...

Ooh, good one. And actually, to have scriptures brought to your memory during a talk probably means that the Holy Ghost is teaching you in a way best for you.