| Gothard
studied four to six hours a night, struggling to achieve average grades.
Around the time he started high school a Christian friend suggested he
memorize and meditate on a chapter of the Bible each week. It sounded
impossible, but he gave it a try. He soon carried an A-average, and
later graduated as a member of the National Honor Society.
He concluded that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between Scripture memorization and success. It never seems to have occured to him that the sheer discipline of memorizing anything — Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, for example — might also have led to good grades. He would later promise audiences, “If I could tell you how to guarantee that everything you do will prosper, would you be interested? There is a clearcut Bible text for this guarantee. Psalm 1:3: ‘The blessed man,’ says the Psalmist, ‘meditates on the law of God day and night and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.’” Gothard makes it sound as though Psalm 1 teaches that earthly success is a by-product of meditating on Scripture. It doesn’t. It teaches that spiritual blessings are by-products of a close relationship with God, and that the practice of meditating on Scripture is an evidence of such a relationship. Unwary listeners don’t realize that Gothard is distorting the Bible to sell his own pet idea. This problem comes up a lot in Gothard’s seminars and literature. |
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