There is something exciting happening, I’ll say it again because we may very well be wearied of exciting new things. But there is something that asks for our excitment.
A kind of rumbling movement. Perhaps you might call it a re-finding, or a remembering, of something lost, forgotten.
Christian lay people are wanting more: more depth, and so they are looking to learn more about this Christianity they hold. They are looking for context, nuance, textual dimensionality. They are becoming more studied. They want scholarship for the streets, theology for the everyday.
Perhaps you and I are part of this. This is a wonderful thing. Ahh but there is a temptation here also! A sort of danger, and so I’ll point it out because left unchecked any of us are liable to trip on it. I point this out so that we might keep studying, digging deep, but with this temptation in mind.
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We must remember Christians are not just students in a classroom, we are apprentices learning from a Master. We learn and we learn a trade. In Matthew we get the picture that we are yoked to Christ, a way of saying that as new oxen learn from experienced ones in the yoke, we are meant to learn how to walk with Christ. Mental assent won’t do it here, Jesus is asking for disciples, not intellectual allies. We can’t climb the mountain with information, if anything, the information we learn in our theologies, with their sharper meanings, original languages, and authorial intent-studies, should make us look not up, but down, for He is waiting for us at the bottom. I call this picture of discipleship, ‘The Way Down’ because as we learn, we understand the gravity of this thing called Christianity. And what Jesus asks for is not professionalism, but surrender. So we don’t need to be very clever, we need to be built up from the very ground floor.
This is where knowledge meets footsteps.
These days we regularly use information in the mode of competition, to get ahead, to best someone in debate, and so on. Yet this cannot be the Christian stance, or we’ll be like those teachers and scribes who missed Christ standing right in front of them. What we learn about God, ourselves, and life is a treasure, we don’t need to store it up for reckless reasons, nor spend it on flash to be impressive. And so what is the balance to be struck with knowledge? Perhaps we live in the tension between two positions:
One pole of tension: knowledge easily puffs us up
“We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.” —1 Corinthians 8.1-3
And the other pole of tension: knowledge as good
“Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments” —Psalm 119.66
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” —Romans 11.33
“I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.” —Ephesians 1.16-17
We end with a strong quote about discipleship, that is, of knowledge put into practice. This is our meditation: we have first been saved, now we are to learn our trade with the Master, and take on a yoke that is easy, light, but in every way teaches us how to walk.
“In the New Testament salvation and discipleship are so closely related as to be indivisible. They are not identical, but as with Siamese twins they are joined by a tie which can be severed only at the price of death….In the working creed of the average Christian salvation is held to be immediate and automatic, while discipleship is thought to be something optional that the Christian may delay indefinitely or never accept at all...The absence of the concept of discipleship…leaves a vacuum that we instinctively try to fill with one or another substitute.”
—From Discipleship by A.W. Tozer
Questions for reflection:
In what ways have my knowledge been hitched to my pride?
Where has my understanding, my knowledge, become not solid, but brittle, not confident but defensive? Lord correct my walk there and give me renewed confident-curiosity.
What places do I still need to go lower, down to the foundations?