aReformedPatriot
14th November 2005, 08:01 PM
http://www1.christianforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54531
My friend Neil Jackson has written something that I have found very insightful and worthy of your eyes to read and mind to soak up. I will post it here:
Monday, November 14, 2005
"Choose this day whom you will serve" was the injunction Joshua put before the sons of Israel. Some would almost apply this to us today, saying, "Choose this day whom you will serve, scholarship or devotion." Why this dichotomy? As B. B. Warfield appropriately asked, "Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God? If learning and devotion are as antagonistic as that, then the intellectual life is in itself accursed, and there can be no question of a religious life for a student, even of theology."
If it is true, and it is, that the Christian is to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him (Col. 3:17) and to do everything to the glory of God, whether eating or drinking or whatever we do (I Cor. 10:31), then surely the study of the Scriptures and theology would fall into those categories. If all our learning cannot save us, then ignorance will not help either.
I will admit, however, that many times I have wondered whether I was becoming a "stone-cold theologian" who may know the answers but also has a cold heart toward God. Indeed, my heart has been cold at times, and the truth of God did not move me as it probably should have. For sure, there are those "scholars" who can tell you exactly what Paul meant by justification by faith and still claim it to be bunk. But it is an error to set up scholarship and devotion as opposing one another. If one can plow a furrow or scrub dishes to the glory of God, then surely seeking to understand the atonement of Christ or the Scriptures concerning the predestination of the elect can be done toward the same end. But it is also true that just as one can plow a field for selfish ends, so one can study theology or even preach the Gospel to the lost for unholy motives. That is something for which I have to watch myself diligently. Sinful pride often rears its ugly head.
The Scripture says, "Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies" (I Cor. 8:1). But let us never forget that while knowledge alone can be harmful, we are commanded to grow in knowledge. In I Peter 1:5-7 we find a list of virtues we are commanded to add to our faith, and interestingly enough, knowledge and love are both on the list. (I must add that the only reason we can add them to our faith is because God has already given us everything pertaining to life and godliness, see I Peter 1:3.)
What's my point in all of this? My point is that love and knowledge go together, there is no reason to separate the two. Can we have knowledge without love? Yes, we can, and unfortunately, many do, and thus give the realm of the academy a bad name. Can we have love without knowledge? Yes. Many have taken this route as well, and sometimes the result is that the name of Christ is dishonored by ignorance. Can we have knowledge and love? Yes. That is as it should be, and properly understood, the two go together. For when we truly know as we ought, we will love. When we know as we ought our hearts will be tender and warm toward the things of God.
My Sunday School class yesterday morning was an example of this. My Sunday School teacher, Adam Embry, is a very intelligent man, and he puts a lot of study into preparing his lessons. In reading to us from a book called "The Person of Christ," Adam nearly wept as he read to us about Christ being deserted by His followers as He was getting ready to suffer the wrath of God, taking on this extreme weight by Himself. True knowledge will lead to proper affections.
To quote Warfield again, "Whatever you may have done in the past, for the future make all your theological studies 'religious exercises.'" And again, "Are you, by this constant contact with divine things, growing in holiness, becoming every day more and more men of God? If not, you are hardening! And I am here today to warn you to take seriously your theological study, not merely as a duty, done for God's sake and therefore made divine, but as a religious exercise, itself charged with religious blessing to you; as fitted by its very nature to fill all your mind and heart and soul and life with divine thoughts and feelings and aspirations and achievements."
To quote also from C. S. Lewis: "For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when the sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."
By God's grace, may any education I receive in the things of God make me more loving toward Him and toward my fellow man, and may I be more zealous for the Gospel of Christ because of the truth I learn.
"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen. Amen."
- The Gloria Patri
My friend Neil Jackson has written something that I have found very insightful and worthy of your eyes to read and mind to soak up. I will post it here:
Monday, November 14, 2005
"Choose this day whom you will serve" was the injunction Joshua put before the sons of Israel. Some would almost apply this to us today, saying, "Choose this day whom you will serve, scholarship or devotion." Why this dichotomy? As B. B. Warfield appropriately asked, "Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God? If learning and devotion are as antagonistic as that, then the intellectual life is in itself accursed, and there can be no question of a religious life for a student, even of theology."
If it is true, and it is, that the Christian is to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him (Col. 3:17) and to do everything to the glory of God, whether eating or drinking or whatever we do (I Cor. 10:31), then surely the study of the Scriptures and theology would fall into those categories. If all our learning cannot save us, then ignorance will not help either.
I will admit, however, that many times I have wondered whether I was becoming a "stone-cold theologian" who may know the answers but also has a cold heart toward God. Indeed, my heart has been cold at times, and the truth of God did not move me as it probably should have. For sure, there are those "scholars" who can tell you exactly what Paul meant by justification by faith and still claim it to be bunk. But it is an error to set up scholarship and devotion as opposing one another. If one can plow a furrow or scrub dishes to the glory of God, then surely seeking to understand the atonement of Christ or the Scriptures concerning the predestination of the elect can be done toward the same end. But it is also true that just as one can plow a field for selfish ends, so one can study theology or even preach the Gospel to the lost for unholy motives. That is something for which I have to watch myself diligently. Sinful pride often rears its ugly head.
The Scripture says, "Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies" (I Cor. 8:1). But let us never forget that while knowledge alone can be harmful, we are commanded to grow in knowledge. In I Peter 1:5-7 we find a list of virtues we are commanded to add to our faith, and interestingly enough, knowledge and love are both on the list. (I must add that the only reason we can add them to our faith is because God has already given us everything pertaining to life and godliness, see I Peter 1:3.)
What's my point in all of this? My point is that love and knowledge go together, there is no reason to separate the two. Can we have knowledge without love? Yes, we can, and unfortunately, many do, and thus give the realm of the academy a bad name. Can we have love without knowledge? Yes. Many have taken this route as well, and sometimes the result is that the name of Christ is dishonored by ignorance. Can we have knowledge and love? Yes. That is as it should be, and properly understood, the two go together. For when we truly know as we ought, we will love. When we know as we ought our hearts will be tender and warm toward the things of God.
My Sunday School class yesterday morning was an example of this. My Sunday School teacher, Adam Embry, is a very intelligent man, and he puts a lot of study into preparing his lessons. In reading to us from a book called "The Person of Christ," Adam nearly wept as he read to us about Christ being deserted by His followers as He was getting ready to suffer the wrath of God, taking on this extreme weight by Himself. True knowledge will lead to proper affections.
To quote Warfield again, "Whatever you may have done in the past, for the future make all your theological studies 'religious exercises.'" And again, "Are you, by this constant contact with divine things, growing in holiness, becoming every day more and more men of God? If not, you are hardening! And I am here today to warn you to take seriously your theological study, not merely as a duty, done for God's sake and therefore made divine, but as a religious exercise, itself charged with religious blessing to you; as fitted by its very nature to fill all your mind and heart and soul and life with divine thoughts and feelings and aspirations and achievements."
To quote also from C. S. Lewis: "For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when the sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."
By God's grace, may any education I receive in the things of God make me more loving toward Him and toward my fellow man, and may I be more zealous for the Gospel of Christ because of the truth I learn.
"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen. Amen."
- The Gloria Patri