I’d like to think that on Sunday in some church somewhere in America, children are having a Sword Drill in their Sunday school classes. As a child, I ruled at Sword Drills, or Bible Drills as my church called them.

“Bibles up!” We would hold our King James Bibles by their spines over our heads—any lower would be cheating.

“_________” Teacher would give a Scripture reference, which was also our cue to look for anyone thumbing the pages of their Bible to gain advantage. This naturally gave way to accusations of cheating, hoping to disqualify any competitor.

“Go!” Hurry to find the verse in our Bibles and start reading it aloud.

I continued my rule of the Bible drill as a curriculum editor at David C. Cook Publishing. It was the early days of desktop publishing, and my fellow editors and I would play our version of Bible drills. One of us at our desk with an unopen Bible; one at the computer set to hit find and go; one to call out a random Scripture reference. Human vs. computer and we savvy editors would always win.

In theory Sword Drills are designed to help children learn how to locate books of the Bible and be comfortable looking up verses, with the goal of having Scripture verses ready for spiritual battle. In practice, Bible drills did help me learn my way around the Bible, but in a hop, skip and a jump way, and, however unintentionally, turned Scripture into a competitive sport—one that I am still tempted to play today.

If my current social feeds reveal anything, it’s how easy it is to post Bible verses for one’s personal agenda and advancement. I do manage mostly to avoid these kinds of posts, but I still hop, skip and jump through Scripture and use it for my advantage.

Here I am reading along in Philippians, happily keeping up with Bible study, when I read verses 14 and 15 of chapter 2: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”

Rather than slow down and face my grumbling and disputing, my complaining and arguing, I skip right over that to the much safer crooked and twisted generation. It’s easier to complain about the dark days we live in than to confess to grumbling about an unfair situation or not getting my own way.

I compare the sins of the godless—sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, those who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy—to the nice sins I commit, using God’s Word to inflate myself as I take a giant leap over Paul’s reminder in 2 Corinthians 6:11 that “such were some of you," apart from Christ's rescue of us from good and bad sins.

Scripture is useful, not for personal gain or promotion, but “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God maybe thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV)

So, Bibles up!

(Philippians 2:15-16)

Go

". . . shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.”