I read the following quote on a Mike Higton’s blog recently. Mike is a Lecturer in Theology at Exeter University. I identified so strongly with what he wrote that I thought I should post it here. It reminded me also of a post I wrote some time back titled Personal Devotions.
On the other hand, I realised that a dividing wall in my mind had, over time, softly and silently vanished away, and that there was in principle no longer any gap for me between devotional and academic exploration of biblical texts. I found that, without having deliberately set off towards it, I had reached a point where it seemed obvious that a careful reading of a biblical text which was as academically rigorous as I could make it could and should also be deeply ‘self-involving’, personally and communally challenging – and that these two aspects were not in conflict, were not even independent, but could and should feed each other. In other words, I was no longer in a position of thinking that I needed to forge connections between the results of acedmic biblical study and a devotional and ecclesial use of the Bible: I no longer saw a gap that might need connections to be built across it.
Long-ing For Life 
Very applicable and encouraging to me!
Wow! This quote is a breath of fresh air. I have been struggling for some time with the whole academic vs. devotional reading of Scripture. I can’t yet say that I’ve reached the same level of freedom in my approach to scripture as described in the quote above, but I feel that I’m well on my way. The harder one has to dig for a gem, the more precious that gem becomes!
Shalom, Shalom!
aaron