Mark Lanier
What I do is, I work from the text, and I look at the text that I need to write on, and I try to figure out what is a salient message that I can communicate from this text. And then after I get the text and the salient message I want to communicate, then I say, okay, everybody’s got to apply it in their own life. But if I can think of something that will at least trigger the idea, or maybe marry up to it, then I want it.
So, I would try to think through a personal story, or I would try to research and find a story in my memory or through external research, and I would use that story and bump it to the beginning, so I’d be priming people’s thoughts for the message before they get to me unwrapping the text itself. And I’ve gone back and read this and books that I wrote a year ago, and I think sometimes I was successful with those stories. Sometimes I’m reading the stories, I’m thinking that doesn’t really relate to the text. I was really having to reach on that one. But at the time I thought I was setting that baby up!
David Capes
Are you doing this early in the morning or late at night?
Mark Lanier
You can tell on some of them when it was early in the morning and when it was late at night. Or some of you can tell when I was hitting in my prime. No, most of these are written first thing in the morning.
David Capes
If somebody were to take this, and just use it on a daily basis, that would thrill you as a writer. How long would it take them on a daily basis just to read the text, reflect on it, to read your comments, and then to take the brief prayer you have at the very end and to pray?
Mark Lanier
I think anybody can do that in less than five minutes. It’s my hope that it can be done quickly, but it’s also my hope that people can use it as a springboard to dive in deeper and to think about it more, and maybe to talk to other people about it. I’ve gotten some letters and notes and cards and emails and texts and conversations with people who are using it.
Some married couples are reading it together and using the prayer as something that they could pray together, just so that they could say today, we prayed together. And it’s not too big of a time commitment, but it is something that I try real hard to marry up every day, not only a practical devotional idea, but also something that the pedagogic, however we would take pedagogy and make it into the adjective, there something that is instructive, teaching that might be a better way to say it.
David Capes
And this tag that you have through the “New Testament Letters for Living,” “Torah for Living,” that’s almost a franchise now, like “The Purpose Driven Life,” or something like that.
Mark Lanier
I don’t think my entire franchise will sell what “The Purpose Driven Life” sells in a week, but the goal is not to sell it. It’s just to make sure it gets out.
David Capes
I remember a mentor of mine years ago that said, if you don’t spend 30 minutes a day in prayer, you haven’t really prayed. Do you ever hear things like?
Mark Lanier
Oh, yeah, yeah. Martin Luther supposedly said something. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s before the internet so it might be, though we had false rumors before the internet. Martin Luther said something like when you’re so busy, busy, busy, how do you have time to pray? And he says, If I didn’t have time to pray, I couldn’t be busy, busy, busy. It’s the only way through my day.
David Capes
Yes, the way I heard it was similar to that. Martin Luther prayed two hours every day, and when he had a really busy day, he prayed three hours!
Mark Lanier
Yes, I’ve heard it that way too. That’s a better way. I think when I tell it, though, now I’m going to say Martin Luther prayed 12 hours every day, and when he had a really busy day, he’d pray 25 I mean, you know, things grow!
David Capes
One of the things I love about your work is that you are able to see practical insights in places that other people are just basically reading. They’re not really thinking about that. Do you see that as a kind of a spiritual gift that you have to be able to see in your teaching? Because you do that both in your teaching on Sunday for Biblical Literacy, but you also do it through your “Thought for the Day” work thing as well.
Mark Lanier
I think it’s probably a gift. I think to some extent; it’s the way my brain is structured. I didn’t structure my brain. It’s something that was done for and through me. Now certainly we influence the way our brains are structured by how we feed them, and what we think and what we do. I think some of it is a gift. I think some of it is a spiritual insight that God is graciously giving at the right time because I can tell the difference between when I pray about it and ask for help and when I just think I’m going to do this on my own and soldier through.
So, I think that there’s a variety, and I think some of it’s also training, and I work hard at trying to ask myself, I don’t want to know how many angels dance on the head of a pen, unless I need access to those angels, or I need access to the head of the pen. There needs to be a “so what” to make it worth people investing their time and energy?
David Capes
The way you’ve done it is you’ve gone through these books, from James down to 3 John, which may very well be the last New Testament letter written. But finding those insights, teasing those out, and seeing them, not just for intellectual stimulation, but to love God with your heart, soul, mind and body. So, you’re thinking through it, but you’ve also been trained to think. Who have been some of the influences for you in reading scripture this way.
Mark Lanier
I go back into my younger life, and I say that because you’re an influence to me. You’re a wonderful scholar who’s produced so many things, and you always come back to Scripture in the way you do it. Beyond those contemporary to me now, would be my Greek professors. I had several. Harvey Floyd was profoundly influential to me. I have a number of Hebrew professors that were profoundly influential in those ways.
And then there are people I don’t know who were influential to me from reading and studying their works. When I was in high school, I was reading CS Lewis, I was reading John Stott, I was reading Francis Schaeffer. All of them had an impact on me as a high school kid. When I got into college, I expanded that reading quite a bit. So, it’s been a lifetime. I tell people, J.I. Packer, every high school kid should read Knowing God. And if you’re 75 years old, and you haven’t read it yet, go back to high school in your brain and read Knowing God. It’s formative.
Leon Morris. There’s not a thing he wrote that I didn’t devour. His Cross in the New Testament and Apostolic Preaching of the Cross books were seminal reading for me in college, and I would work through them with my Greek New Testament next to me and just tear them up with notes. Leon Morris, his commentary on John, on Romans. I loved a lot of F.F. Bruce’s stuff. I think some of the stuff he turned out was not stellar but most of his stuff was really, really good. His Acts commentary in Greek, that series was absolutely one of the best commentaries on Acts at the time and I still enjoy reading his stuff. So those are some of the influences.
David Capes
And now you are a formative influence on the life of so many other people. It’s just part of what it means to be part of the body of Christ, right? Part of the stream of tradition, where truth is passed down from the apostles, all the way down.
Mark Lanier
We’re links in a chain. We want to be good links.
David Capes
That’s right, we do want to be good links. Hopefully we’re strong links. So we’re going to look for Chronicles for Living next, right! That’s going to happen pretty soon, and I’m going be fascinated to see how you get all these kids names done.
Mark Lanier
It’s going to be good, it’s going to be fun. It’s going to be challenging. And what I’ve committed to myself is, I’ve got to get the devotional written fully and edited properly before I go back and adjust to do the names. Because I don’t want the name spelling to dictate the devotional. I want it to be manifested in the devotional. I want the devotional right first.
David Capes
Well, we’ll look forward to seeing that, and we’ll have you back next time to talk about that and hopefully inspire folks to have a devotional every day. Even if it’s five minutes. It matters. It matters. It really does. Mark Lanier, thanks for being with us today on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
