A Bad Habit

I graduated from seminary over 7 years ago now. I am still trying to unlearn some things!

Don't get me wrong. There were all sorts of great things learned during those years of study that continue to have an impact in my life and ministry. However, there are is one thing I picked up during those years that has persistently been detrimental to my walk with God. You see, I developed a bad habit during those years in seminary that I think a lot of believers probably develop at different times in life. The circumstances under which the habit are formed might not be seminary for most, but the habit is a common one nonetheless.

The habit has to do with how we read and engage with God's word. It has to do with with 'knowing' scripture verses 'experiencing' the richness and beauty of scripture when we surrender to it. At the end of it all, experiencing is really a deeper more intimate form of knowing, but unfortunately most of us are quite content to settle for a shallow 'knowing' quite devoid of experience.

In seminary I learned skills and got exposed to tools that were supposed to help me grow in my understanding of scripture. It is true that these things helped tremendously with my knowledge of scripture but that didn't translate into my experience of scripture. I can study original languages to pick up on nuances lost in translation, pour over commentaries to see differing perspectives on a passage, point out structure in passages that give added depth, and cite all sorts of historical information to give extra context to what is happening in scripture.

All of these are good things. Preachers, teachers, and writers (and their audiences) love to use these things. And why not? You can sound pretty intelligent and feel significant when quoting church fathers and ancient philosophers. You get definite Christian street cred if you can walk someone through the various possible translations for tricky verbs in Greek. Throw in a reference to a dead white guy's thoughts on a passage? It's like hitting paydirt in some churches.

There is nothing wrong with doing any of those things. However, the troublesome habit I formed in seminary is that I ended up approaching scripture trying to be clever, well-read, well spoken, and intelligent. As a reader you might not do it in quite the same way as me, but I think all of us can tend towards this habit even if we are only preaching to ourselves.

We have our favorite pastors and theologians to quote. Our "bible studies" are more often actually "what one guy (usually white) thinks about the bible" studies. We also love our "red letter" bibles to help us know what is 'really' important, as if that determination was ours to make. And when all else fails we can fall back on our  church traditions and mistake church policy and preference for biblical truth.

The problem with the bad habits many of us take into our time in scripture is that they only help us with the knowledge of scripture and not with our experience of scripture. I know I struggle with this and so I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I might start developing some better habits and attitudes. What I have been concerned about in my life is that we can know all sorts of good, helpful and true things about God's word and not experience it as we ought to. A quick scan of biblical 'scholars' reveals a frightening number of atheists which tells me I am on to something.

How then ought we experience scripture so that our knowledge isn't fruitless or faithless? How can we approach scripture in a way that leads to transformation in our hearts and lives?

For starters, with humility. Gratitude. With a sense of awe and reverence fully aware of our need for God to speak to us. Scripture is something to be immersed in. Something to be saturated with. It should overwhelm and sweep over our hearts and minds with its truth and with God's love. There ought to be a very strong sense of surrender and submission when we go to scripture.

To help me out I have been trying to come up with an image or metaphor that might convey some of the concern I have felt about my own time spent reading the bible. The image I have came up with as I seek to re-train my heart to 'experience' and not just 'know' scripture is that of the weather. In particular, I am thinking about some of the ways that people 'know' the weather.

There is a seminary equivalent to studying the weather that comes across our nightly news: the weather forecast. There, we see on full display what years of study and use of excellent technology can produce: maps, predictions, patterns, and even the history of a particular storm. We can lay out historical trends, share records, give warnings and provide all that we usually need to 'know' about the weather.

But this 'knowledge' is very different from the experience of weather that ultimately makes any 'knowing' worth while.

It is one thing to 'know' the weather but to 'experience' the weather is quite another thing. The hope and longing and then sudden joy a farmer experiences at coming rain is a unique kind of knowledge that comes from experiencing the weather in the flesh and blood. Likewise, the awe and fear and terror brought about in the violence of a storm does something to our hearts that a forecast can't do. The serenity of Minnesota summers or the beauty of a sunset or the oppressive, will-crushing heat of the Texas sun are experiences that don't compute in the weather models we see on tv but each is a powerful way of 'knowing' the weather that is predicated on actually experiencing the weather.

We can all remember examples of all kinds of weather that we have experienced but we probably can't remember a single weather forecast we have seen through the years. There is something profoundly significant about knowledge that comes from experiencing something that just can't be re-reacted through the shallower intellectual knowledge. It sticks with us in a different way than what comes over the airwaves and onto our tv screens.

We study the weather in order to develop knowledge of the weather so that we can better experience it. However, at some point in time we need to give up the comfort and control of heat and air conditioning, step away from our screens and try to live life. It really is an act of surrender when we expose ourselves to the weather so that we can enjoy it for what it truly is: beautiful, dreadful, harsh, gentle, violent, calming, mundane, and inspiring. At their best, news forecasts help us make wise decisions on when and how to enjoy the weather.

So it should be with our study of scripture. Our commentaries, original language studies, favorite preachers/authors, and tools that help us see patterns, connect storylines, identify motifs, and diagram arguments should only serve the ultimate end of experiencing scripture. We need to use our 'knowledge' of scripture to step into scripture in the same way we step into the weather after a forecast: with no control of scripture (or weather) but surrendering to what God speaks there and using our knowledge to make wise decisions. We build up our 'knowledge' of the bible so that we can better experience the weather.

Just like with the weather, when we step out of the climate control of our commentaries and Greek lexicons and favorite bibles studies, we don't control what is said in God's word but surrender and submit to it. Unlike with the weather where we ought to avoid the bad stuff, we don't avoid the hardest stuff in scripture. A weather forecast helps us avoid stepping into a tornado, but our study and 'knowledge' of scripture ought equip us to do precisely that with God's word. The hard issues and big storms are not things to avoid but things to surrender to while trusting in God's goodness.

Experiencing scripture really is an act of dependence on the Holy Spirit as we ask him to speak, reveal, teach, and discipline. We don't come with pretension or a sense of control or with demands to hear certain things. We come empty handed in order to receive. We allow truth to saturate our hearts and minds. We become steeped in passages and dripping with words spoken by God himself for His people.

Along the way our experiencing becomes our knowing, moving us beyond translation issues, competing commentaries, and historical context to actually hearing from the God whose word is still living and active. Our knowing changes from reading about God to communing with God. We ought not read the bible as a Facebook profile for God but rather as a coffee date with Him. Seminary never taught me how to go on a date with God. Instead, I feel was trained to read and write profiles for God on a dating site!

As I see things today, the seminary experience of building 'knowledge' was never explained as being something to aid in experiencing scripture. Rather, it often was presented as some sort of spiritual 'climate control' which could be used to achieve mastery over scripture. As I continue un-learning this bad habit I am learning to surrender and submit with my head and heart so that God can speak to me.

Perhaps your journey is different. Perhaps none of this resonates. But for those who do connect with this I'd encourage you to step out of the comforts of climate control and into the winds and waves of God's word. Surrender and submit and FEEL and don't just think. Feel awe, reverence, humility, fear, gratitude, wonder and everything else God intended for us to feel in relation to him and scripture.

I know that in my life and in my time with God spent in scripture I want to be less like the weather forecaster and more like the farmer who looks to the skies with complete dependence on it with hopes and fears tied up with what may come or like the sailor who watches his sails snapping in the wind and feels the thrill of cutting through the waves.

I want to experience the richness, depth and power of scripture with the awe, wonder and sometimes terror of the little Minnesotan boy I once was. I would beg my mother to play outside on days when school was cancelled due to cold because there is something fearsome and fascinating about weather that can freeze your spit before it hits the ground. Or I would step onto the front porch when tornado sirens went off in order to feel the sting of hard rain and to watch the power of the wind twisting century old oaks in a way that seemed unfathomable. God's word holds the same possibilities for exciting and inspiring experiences.

For me it has meant a shift from trying to gain mastery of to a willingness to be mastered by scripture.

Let the winds blow as they may.