Let me preface with: sorry if I sound spacey, I’m sleepy and have spent the day getting my mind blown with the Logos (John 1) and Lady Wisdom (Proverbs 8).

This semester I am taking a unit on Christology. I was a leetle nervous ahead of time, since I had heard from a solid Christian friend who had gone before me down this road that it is an interesting experience, to say the least. Theology at a secular and very liberal university. It’s bound to have its curly moments But my friend said it was a good growing experience… and I’m finding the same thing.

A stand-out difference is being under teachers whose ultimate goal for my theological education is to think critically about the person and work of Jesus Christ, whereas I am used to Bible teachers whose ultimate goal for me is that I love Jesus and others more. But the two outcomes are far from mutually exclusive. Understanding of God fuels the heart to love God. And I want to think critically about God and the things of God, not just accept whatever is thrown my way. Paul praised the Bereans, who didn’t just mindlessly accept whatever he said, but they searched these things out in the Scriptures to see if they were actually true (Acts 17:11).

Proactive Christians, I love it. That’s how we need to be. It’s not enough to complain that you didn’t get ‘fed’ at that church service… what are you doing to feed yourself? Babies sit around and cry and have to be fed all the time. But part of life is growing up and learning how to feed yourself. NOT that getting Biblical teaching is wrong, we truly need other people’s point of view, and need to be under people wiser than ourselves etc etc… but at the same time, we have responsibility to take care of ourselves too. Let’s not be babies in the things and pursuit of God. Let’s not be like the Corinthians… “I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.” (1 Cor 3:1-2)

^^ bunny trailed. I am more susceptible when I’m sleepy… NOT saying that you need to study the Bible at a tertiary level to go deep in it. Do what you need to do. Go YOUR way up the mountain (SoS 4:6).

Anyways, back to the topic I started with

It is academically challenging, and they really push me to articulate well and intelligently. But that’s a good thing. I want to be more than an emotional teacher of the Word, although that is good and necessary. I want to be one who knows her stuff and can articulate things well. What’s the point of wanting to teach things that I can’t make understandable? I want to speak truth, not what I think is truth, but what is truth. Not just what the Bible says, but what it means… so I need to delve deep and prayerfully into the Word and let Him teach me what it means.

Yes, I know that it isn’t up to me to make hearts understand the preaching of the Word, it’s up to the Holy Spirit etc etc… buuut that’s like an untrained guitarist joining the worship team and saying ‘I’ll be fiiiine, it’s not my fault if the congregation can’t accept my playing’. You get the skills so that the God can use them through you. Memorising Bible verses is like putting arrows in your quiver for God to shoot from you.

There’s no easy way around it. If you want to teach the Word, you have to know the Word, and I think that a better teacher is actively seeking to know it better. If you want to know the Word, you have to spend time in the Word… better to spend time in the Word with the One who wrote it. And this takes time. No easy way around it, nope.

At first it grated me that it wasn’t enough to just quote and cross reference Bible verses, especially because I quietly thought I was pretty good at it (priiiiide… DIE DIE DIE!!). They wanted me to back up my ideas by referencing scholars and theologians. And at first I thought it was dumb, ranted a bit about only needing the Word… but God waited through my tantrum, and now I see that the whole quoting scholars thing is such a blessing. It keeps me in heresy check makes sure that I am not twisting Bible verses to agree with me or say what I want them to say. I am learning new things about Scripture and who Jesus is, by methodically unpacking verses and passages I sing about all the time, and have even studied devotionally…

But I am joining the club of Jesus lovers who have found the academic study of Scripture to be a blessing. While I am not advocating becoming like a Pharisee… diligently searching Scriptures, thinking that the studying of them in and of themselves earns you eternal life (John 5:39)… but I am advocating that we all diligently pursue (Hebrews 11:6) the knowledge of the Lord through the Scriptures… for this is eternal life!

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.”

– John 17:3

And now… to sleep. Adeiu.