Playing Chess, Knowing the Bible, and Relationship with our Father: II

As I mentioned in the previous post, during Andrew’s visit with us last week we played a few games of chess. In the last game we played Andrew’s first eight moves were all pawn moves, moving each pawn forward one square. The rest of the game was really not a game of chess, not really – just moves here and there for him, exchanging a knight for a pawn, losing a queen for a bishop – moves that didn’t make any sense. Mind you, the boy is smart, so this isn’t a case of him not being able to learn the game.

I said, “Andrew, let me teach you how to play chess.”

“I already know how to play chess.”

“Not really, you know how to move the pieces, let me help you understand the game.”

Indignantly Andrew replied, “I already know how to play.”

I first learned chess from my mother’s step-father. I recall sitting at our dinning-room table in Kensington, MD looking across the board at “Uncle” Frank; I can still see his smile – a retired Army sergeant who lived by himself at the Old Soldiers Home in Washington, D.C. (my grandmother died of cancer when I was too little to remember her), visiting his stepdaughter and her family for a day. How young was I? Six? Seven? Eight? I don’t think as old as eight, maybe six. I was pretty young because I can see through the mist of young impressions sitting by Mom at Arlington National Cemetery at Uncle Frank’s funeral, I see the soldier in dress blues presenting Mom with an American Flag; had I been older than six or seven the military funeral would be in high definition.

Those who play chess, especially at my not very high level, know that you never “learn” chess; there are Masters and Grandmasters, so I suppose they’ve “learned" the game in one sense, but in another they are always learning, always preparing, always studying – that’s what makes them Masters and Grandmasters; that’s what makes a concert musician a concert musician; that’s what makes a disciple a disciple. Chess can be a lifelong relationship, a context within which to think and solve problems; you don’t need a physical board and physical pieces to think about chess or apply chess to other areas of life. Someone who has played enough chess can “see” the board, can “see” the sixty-four squares.

In NASCAR auto racing there is something called “seat time”. Drivers who move up from one racing division to another need “seat time” in the new higher division in order to get a feel for the cars used, the racing style, the race tracks, and the strategies. (Yes, there really are strategies.) In the first year a driver moves into the highest division, the Sprint Cup, a stripe is placed across the rear bumper of the “rookie” driver’s car to warn the other drivers that they are behind a rookie driver and to watch out – for he is unaccustomed to racing at the Sprint Cup level and he just might make a mistake. When you’re travelling at close to 200 miles per hour mistakes are not good.

Christians often approach the Bible the way my grandson approaches chess; they think because they can find chapter and verse that they know the Bible. They think because they can recite a verse here and a verse there that they know the Bible. They think because they can relate what they consider to be the main tenets of their particular slant on Christianity (often expressed without reference to the Bible) that they know the Bible. That is like my sweet grandson thinking that because he knows how to move individual pieces that he knows how to play chess. Most Christians no more “see” the Bible as a whole than my dear grandson can “see” the chess board as a whole, or see the relationship of the pieces to each other.

But of course where people are today is less of a problem than in what direction they are headed – we all start somewhere. The sad thing is that many of us in effect say, “I already know the Bible. I already know what the Bible says. I can find the Gospel of John.” (Though they probably can’t find Obadiah!) We teach the Bible piecemeal, when we teach it at all, and we learn the Bible piecemeal.

How many sermons, Bible studies, and small-group sessions have I sat in that have not related the text to the context of the Biblical book in which the passage is found – let alone related it to the context of the entire Bible? Instead it is this piece of data and that piece of data and what does this data say to us today – never mind what the text means in its immediate and broader contexts. Moving the pieces is not understanding the game.

No matter how many videos or books one reads on chess, chess must be played to be learned. No matter how many NASCAR races a person watches, you’ve got to actually race, to actually have seat time, in order to learn to race. Many high-level racers today got their start in go-karts; and many still enjoy a go-kart race now and then. No matter how many sermons or radio programs we listen to, no matter how many books about the Bible we may read, we’ve got to read the Bible to know the Bible – and we’ve got to have a relationship with the Bible to “see” the Bible.

Can we “see” Philippians? Can we “see” Exodus? If we read Revelation can we “see” through the text of Revelation into Exodus, Zechariah, Daniel, and Ezekiel? Do we see the overlays and interconnectedness of Genesis to Revelation? Can we tell the story? If we were on the proverbial desert island with our children or grandchildren with no written Bible could we tell them the story? Can we touch the texture of Ezra? Can we smell the Song of Solomon? Can we climb the mountains of Romans and Ephesians? Are we awestruck by the IMAX theatre of Revelation? Is our skin parched and lips chapped walking through Numbers? Are we hungry with the crowds in Matthew? Do we sense the foreboding of John and at the same time rejoice in its hope? Are we walking on the road to Emmaus? And wherever we are in this grand cosmic-earthly and time-eternity sweep – do we see Jesus, do we see Him, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last? For seeing Jesus, loving Jesus, beholding Jesus…that above all else…is having an “eye” for the Bible. Anything less than seeing Jesus is just moving the pieces.