Is there something in your life....anything....that you can look back on....something where for a time....maybe a long time....you looked lightly upon or even ignored....but then....something inside you changed....and you found yourself passionately interested in it?
One example that many people might attest to....including myself....is education....or rather....education taken seriously. Surely you at least know others who early in life were poor students....and then later on....apparently suddenly matured....they became very good students? I was a poor student in high school. It wasn't because I fooled around and played the clown or anything like that....because I tried. I remember very vividly how at the beginning of every year I would get a new ring binder notebook....plenty of lined white sheets of paper....and dividers.....with labels.....and pens and pencils and erasers. I was ready and willing....but not able....for I simply did not have the dedication to continue beyond a week or two.
The desire to become an excellent student continued in college....but the lure of the college pub proved too much for me. I remember one class though....one of those classes held in a large classroom....in a half circle....with every row rising above the one before it. The class....a 101 course....was an introduction to theater....considered by everyone to be pretty dull stuff....which under normal conditions I would have worked hard enough to get a C or maybe a B.....but in this course....I happened to have had a fancy for....and worked with the graduate student instructor. I now had a great desire and a real reason to study....and impress. That new textbook looked old halfway through the trimester....with highlighting and underlining on every page....and I had the highest mark in that huge class in the midterm....filled with far better students than myself.
As I often do in these posts....I write a couple of paragraphs that have nothing to do with the message of the post....other than to lead into it.....and that is this post. You may have been....or are now....quite the opposite of what I was. You know how to study and have always done your very best....and the results have been in your excellent grades? My wife was like that....and was a co-valedictorian. I was more a maledictorian.
I don't know you....but I know the grades that the evangelical church in America receives today....grades it has been getting for many decades....and they are barely passing grades if that. I know this because I see the America before us....and the church of today which is thoroughly embedded in the culture. The lure may not be a pub....but it is a great temptation whatever it is.
We read our Bibles....I cannot deny that. We may have perfect attendance in Sunday School....and if we are old enough we may have twenty or thirty or even forty years of weekly.....(save for summer vacation)....Bible studies. We are in effect professional Bible study students....but folks this is....God-lite....people are not getting saved....loved ones are perishing....there is little to no discernment as to the judgment that God is inflicting us with right now....and we have en masse followed a false prophet....and I just hope and pray that he is just a false prophet and no more!
Things may be about to change though....for there seems to be a serious wind just starting to get our attention....that will only get stronger....a winnowing force able to blow away the masses of evangelicals who were never born anew. I submit to you that Bible reading will change. There won't be a teacher to go to for a quick answer instead of mining for the answers ourselves in God's Word....and it won't be small pamphlets to read a chapter and answer the questions....for we will wear God's Word around our neck at all times....as did Corrie Ten Boom's sister Betsy in the concentration camp....guarding it....treasuring it....so as to open and seek answers and guidance and wisdom and discernment anywhere and at any time of the night or day.
Addendum: Ultimately....the benefit of an organized Bible study is dependant upon the knowledge of the person teaching the Bible study. In itself learning can go no further than what the teacher knows. That teacher may and probably does teach from a book....but the Bible study is then dependant upon the teacher....(author)....who wrote the book. This is where we need help. I'm not saying that Bible studies therefore are of no benefit....for they are....on the most basic and fundamental doctrines that are necessary in the Christian life....they are very important here....but to use the word again....'ultimately'....what matters most is our personal desire to continuously learn God's Word. For if this desire is preeminent in our lives....meaning that if we can say as David wrote in Psalm 42...."As the deer pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God"....then God will come close and keep His promise and guide our minds and give us discernment....and that includes eventual discernment to recognize the better teachers and authors and better Bible studies. This is evident in teachers such as was R. C. Sproul....or John Piper....or many others....and there are Bible study teachers in many churches that are very capable! On the other hand....if our desire to know more of God is not preeminent in our lives...crowded out by worldly desires....if our own homes are more important than that...."built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets"....."Christ Jesus being the cornerstone"....then we will be proportionally blessed....less.
Psalm 132: 1-5.....A Song Of Ascents....(NKJV)
"LORD, remember David
And all his afflictions;
How he swore to the LORD,
And vowed to the Mighty God of Jacob:
'Surely I will not go into the chamber
of my house,
Or go up to the comfort of my bed;
I will not give sleep to my eyes
Or slumber to my eyelids,
Until I find a place for the LORD,
A dwelling place for the Mighty God of Jacob'."
