I remember sitting in the classroom at the close of my second semester of graduate school and coming to a pretty significant realization. Amidst the other classes I had taken, I had just finished the two parts of our Old Testament Survey class. I had essentially spent 9 months in lectures, read thousands of pages, written a handful of research papers, and taken a handful of exams. It hit me that I had more questions about the Bible on that day than when I began. I don’t think that is an indictment on my professors, but rather a realization of how BIG our God is and how expansive, awesome, and powerful are his scriptures.
How have you been stretched in your study of God’s word?
It is very important to say here that there are some fundamental beliefs that shouldn’t change. We are constantly learning new words/vocabulary as english speakers, but we are not adding letters to the alphabet. There is a basic foundation that supports our continued wrestling and understanding of God and his word. We have to start with a foundation and that foundation must be the Bible. From the Bible we are then able to answer other questions and dive into deeper issues by using that ‘plumb line’ to answer our questions.
I am convinced that if our beliefs are not being challenged and aren’t changing to some extent, then we are not searching for truth in the pages of scripture. Often times what I hear from people is an expectation of how God should function and then a journey through the scriptures to confirm those expectations. That is the recipe for a domesticated and neutered God.
Many of the greatest growth surges in my spiritual journey have been sitting down with one or two others while flipping through the pages of the Bible to answer questions about the person and work of God. Many of those produced a journey in my life which radically changed my spiritual life. We are in a very dangerous place when we reach the level of arrogance of thinking we have God figured out.
I can mark my spiritual journey over the past 10 years with some very significant changes in the way I view God. The continued study of the Bible will and MUST change our thinking. I am so thankful for the growth and stretching in my life as I have wrestled through difficult topics and passages in scripture. I am also very thankful for those who have come along side of me and been a safe place to have these conversations.
In my own personal journey over the past two years, my views on spiritual warfare have radically changed. As often happens, I didn’t have beliefs that were informed by studying the scriptures. My views were informed by what made me feel comfortable and what information had been handed to me by other people. This is just one example of so many in my personal spiritual journey.
Have you experienced this in your own life? Are there views or beliefs that have changed for you after spending significant time in the God’s word and in discussion with others? Do you have some relationships that provide you a safe place to wrestle with scripture… relationships in which you can be yourself and ask questions that might feel weird?
Matt Powell serves as teaching pastor at Crossings Community Church, a body of believers whose mission is to engage, equip, and empower homes for gospel transformation in Katy, TX.
My views changed the most regarding the miraculous spiritual gifts, not that all of them aren’t supernatural since they are all empowered by the Spirit. However, I was in the cessationist camp who generally believe that the miraculous gifts were provided only for the foundation of the Christian Church. I was influenced towards this view primarily because of the excesses of the charismatic movement. After studying scripture, I didn’t find any support for the cessation of these spiritual gifts and was made aware of the contemporary use of these spiritual gifts through people I knew and trusted who held a very high view of scripture.
Yes, I have walked that path too… amidst some others I will share. Thanks for sharing that Joel!
I feel like my view and understanding of God is in a constant state of change. For so much of my Christian life my understanding of God has come from me listening and accepting someone else’s view of God. Not that sitting under biblical teaching is bad, it’s not. What is bad is refusing to dig deep into scripture for yourself. It’s in my own personal time of digging and praying through God’s word that my view of Him grows tremendously. I’m confronted with things that He says and does that was beyond the god I had fashioned, a “domesticated and neutered god”. I do have great relationships to ask the weird questions and wrestle with scripture. I think it is significant to recognize that it is ok to ask weird or what may seem like dangerous questions. I’m confident that God is honored not threatened with our weird questions, provided we use His word for the awnsers.
That’s great! I think you raise a really good point in your third sentence and one very personal for me. Biblical preaching can become an idol at one extreme…. I think we see faith put in a preacher rather than the truth sometimes.
I believe that one of the greatest benefits of Biblical preaching is that as we take it in week by week we are also learning how to feed ourselves through seeing how someone else has studied the scriptures. Hopefully as we see someone else work hard to observe the scripture well, place it within the greater context, and demonstrate its obvious relevance… it equips us to do the same day after day in our own personal interactive study.
When viewed appropriately, Biblical preaching is used by God to enflame our personal study rather than replacing it.
While I have heard of Piper’s “Christian hedonism” for quite some time, my experiential understanding of this truth has been coming more and more into focus in my life. While I could have told you in the past that God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him, I would not have been able to communicate from personal experience why our joy is so crucial to a God-glorifying life.
The specific truths in this area that God has been pounding me on through his Word have been seeing how joy is most powerfully recognized through circumstances that don’t naturally provide happiness. This is to say that our greatest opportunity for true joy can be found in darkest of places. No question it is easy to have “joy” when our marriage is smooth, our kids are well-behaved, our jobs are fulfilling, and our friendships are satisfying. But what about when the sinfulness of our own wicked hearts comes to the surface. Is it possible to experience joy in those moments? I have been finding through God’s Word that the answer is overwhelmingly yes.
When my ugly sin spills out onto others – my family, my coworkers – I am able to experience the true joy found in confession and reconciliation. This is not to say that confession of sin is easy, but there is certainly a weight-lifting joy that comes from shining the light on our wickedness. The depravity within us flees at the sight of honest confession, humble repentance, and gracious forgiveness. That is when true joy is found. That is when the biblical truths of confessing our sins to one another and forgiving our brother as often as he sins against us really begin to make sense.
It is in these times when the richness of God’s mercies toward us through others is magnified. It is the power of God to turn our sin into his glory. It is the great exchange – beauty for ashes. Oh, there is much joy in confession!
I like this: “It is the power of God to turn our sin into his glory”. Reminds me of Paul saying that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Chris our Lord.
So well stated, Andrew. I pray that we, as sinful people, will be moved to that kind of joy producing repentance.