Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Pharasaic Tendencies
Just one quick thought prior to jumping into the wonderful world of civil procedure. This is a parallel posts to Matt's "Caution to Young Theologians." This morning I spent some time reading and meditating on the "seven woes" in Matthew 23. Jesus is denouncing the Pharisees and Scribes for their blatant hypocrisy. I was struck though, at how similar I am to the Pharisee. These men were the best educated scholars of their day. They were supposed to know God. Now, I'm not saying that I'm a super-educated scholar, but I am saying that we live in a country at a time when we have great freedom to pursue formal Biblical training. If not formal Biblical training, we have the opportunity to self-educate through study of our own. In all of this education have we grown our brains and forgotten our hearts? I think Jesus would rather have us know basics, but know them well, and be radically and deeply in love with him than have a head full of "knowledge" and have nothing more than a surface level relationship with him. In the end, the heart of all true and sound theology is God himself. We learn, study, meditate, discuss, and wrestle over theological issues because of our unrelenting desire to know God in all of his glory through Christ Jesus. Not for knowledge. Brothers, I implore you, in all your reading, in all your study, in all your meditations; seek Christ as the end. I trust you will hold me to this standard as well.
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2 comments:
I must admit: this is a struggle of mine, though not an intentional one. Cultivating intimacy with Christ in biblical reading and study is the biggest challenge I've been dealing with for years. I love the Word, and love to learn from it. I think it is absolutely essential. There's nothing like those times when a verse resonates within me. But I must lack something; and lately I've been thinking that that "something" has been my poor habit (or lack thereof) of prayer.
In other words, I don't intentionally try to lift up myself and separate myself from God through knowledge. Nor do I wish that I knew everything as well as others. However, like Matt mentioned, I regret that the Word has not impacted my soul as much as I believe it should; and when a phrase like "intimacy with Christ" is brought up, I admit that I don't know much about what that is. And that makes me think that I need to talk more with Him.
In my Greek exegesis of 1John class we have been discussing the fact that John seems to be preaching the same gospel, over and over again, to believers. Now why does he do this? Simply, we are transformed by seeing Christ (2Cor. 3) and we see him most clearly in the gospel.
I agree with Jeremy completely. We don't need more theology in general, we need to grow in our understanding of the gospel truth. There is plenty there to satisfy our theological appetites and, far more importantly, we will find Jesus there.
Love you guys.
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