Dedicating time to Bible engagement …
In his book Outliers: The Story of Success*, Malcolm Gladwell argues that success is due to much more than intelligence and ambition. According to Gladwell, one very important factor that enables people to be extremely successful is the amount of time they spend pursuing/practicing a specific activity or pursuit.
In a study of college music majors, Gladwell discovered that students who had practised for 4-6 thousand hours on their instruments usually became music teachers, those who had practised for 6-8 thousand hours usually became music performers, and those who had practised for 10,000 hours had the potential to be world-class musicians. The 10,000-hour plateau also applies to writers, painters, football players, astronomers, gymnasts, researchers, sculptors, actors – to everyone in the arts, academics or athletics.
If Bible engagement were our college major, then to become Bible teachers, we would need to read/reflect/practice it for 4 hours every day for 365 days of the year, for 3-4 years. To go to the next level (maybe a teacher of teachers), we would need to read/reflect/practice the Bible for 6 hours every day for 365 days of the year, for 3-4 years. To be world-class, we would need to read/reflect/practice the Bible for 8 hours every day of the year for 3.5 years.
Most of us can’t commit 4-8 hours daily over 3-4 years to Bible reading/reflection/practice. That doesn’t mean we can’t attain a level of engagement with the Bible that would be considered world-class status by Gladwell’s measure.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Ten thousand hours is attainable when it’s accrued over a longer period. If one goes to church every week for 2 hours, attends a weekly Bible study group for 2 hours, and reads the Bible for 1 hour daily, it takes about 17 and a half years to attain world-class status.
Of course, it requires much more than time spent reading, reflecting, and ‘practicing’ (obeying) the Bible to become mature in the Word. We should probably add that to attain world-class Bible engagement status we need the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts and minds (cf. Psalm 119:36; Romans 12:2), the recognition that we can’t do it in the flesh (cf. Galatians 5:17), a willingness to hear the word of God and obey it (cf. James 1:25), and the desire to see our lives becoming more and more about Jesus (cf. Colossians 3:1-3).
* An outlier is a statistical term referring to an extreme observation, i.e. an observation point that is distant from other observations or belongs to something different from the rest of a sample set.
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Summary
In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell argues that success is not solely determined by intelligence or ambition but by the amount of time dedicated to practicing a specific activity, with 10,000 hours being a key threshold. Gladwell’s research shows that those who practice for 10,000 hours can reach world-class status in music, sports, and academics. Applying this concept to Bible engagement to become world-class requires years of consistent reading, reflection, and practice. However, beyond time, true mastery requires transformation by the Holy Spirit, a willingness to obey God’s word, and a life centred on Jesus.
© Scripture Union Canada
