Seize the Summer: Removing Barriers (part 4)featured
Our last group of barriers to time in the Word includes:
“Isn’t obedience and mission more important than head knowledge?”
“I don’t really need to study, I just need to love.”
“I don’t need theology, I just love God.”
Let’s summarize this group as, “False Dichotomy.”
As we’ve seen in our first three groups, it’s certainly possible that what underlies this group of excuses is sin. Maybe pride again, where we are trying to determine what’s best for us instead of trusting what God has told us is best. If this is the case, I hope we all know the answer by now. Repent and believe the Gospel!
But we’re going to assume in this case that we’ve got good intentions. Maybe we know people who know tons of theology but are jerks. Maybe we know people who are passionate about reading their Bibles but don’t seem to care at all about anyone but themselves.
We need only to read Scripture to see that it is absolutely true that doing is important. But pitting learning against doing is a false dichotomy–we don’t have to pick one or the other.
Instead, we need to understand the order.
Scripture teaches us that our doing always flows out of our believing. Let’s look at an unexpected example, when God gives the Israelites the 10 commandments. Here is a very clear call to do, to keep God’s law. But before giving the Law, God starts with a declaration: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” He’s anchoring his commands in who He is as their redeemer.
When we say, I don’t need theology, I just love God,” the problem is the question, “Who is God?” As soon as we begin answering this question, we’ve entered into theology. But, as we’ve said, when we know God more and more, we grow in love for him. Obedience motivated by love brings joy and produces worship. Obedience apart from love leads to bitterness and resentment.
Maybe we worry that we’ll get filled with head knowledge without seeing any tangible fruit in our lives. Nancy Leigh DeMoss says, “Sound theology will always lead us to worship and transformation.” If our theology does not lead us to act, then it is bad theology.
So it’s not that we don’t talk about the doing that flows from our believing, but if we trust that good theology produces fruit, then we need to:
Build a solid foundation.
If we are acting apart from sound theology, eventually our theology will be exposed as we walk through trials. John Piper says, “Wimpy theology makes wimpy women.” Those of us who have experienced any sort of unexpected pain know this well. When we face suffering and temptation, we need an anchor. We must be like the man who “dug down deep” and built his house upon the rock.
Scripture provides us with an anchor in Christ. We know that whatever may come, our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’s blood and righteousness. So how do we build that solid foundation? Throughout Old Testament history, prophets would call the Israelites to remember how God delivered them from Egypt. Look back and see the truth of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness! Let that be your anchor as you trust him now! The same is true for us as we look at the grand story of redemption that spans all of Scripture. We too can look back to God’s faithfulness in the Exodus, but unlike the Israelites then who could only anticipate the coming Messiah, we can look back to the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. We can see that God keeps His promises—He made that clear when He sent His Son to the cross. We can see God faithfully building His Church, drawing sinners like Peter and Paul and you and me.
Our theology takes root as the doctrine we believe, which produces worship, and together these cause us to live as disciples of Christ before a watching world. As we build a solid foundation upon the Word of God, we begin to:
Adorn our doctrine with good works.
Titus 2 holds one of the classic women’s texts because it describes women-on-women ministry.
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (vs. 3-5)
This is often a passage we would go to when we want to focus on what to do. I think if we’re honest, a lot of us might tend towards this—I don’t want to study, just tell me what I’m supposed to do. But look at what Paul is writing here. Yes, he’s telling Titus what woman-on-woman ministry looks like. But it’s in a greater section where he’s telling Titus to teach sound doctrine. And look at why he tells the women to live this way: So the word of God may not be reviled. Later he talks about good works that adorn the doctrine of God our Savior, and goes on to spell out the Gospel, declaring that it is grace at work in us that produces good works.
This happens naturally as the fruit of a life built upon the foundation of Christ as He is revealed in Scripture. We don’t need to pit learning against doing; we need to continue to call one another before the truth of God’s Word and trust the Spirit to produce fruit in His timing.
Seize the Summer
If any of these barriers keep you from spending time in the Word, I encourage you to look at this summer as a unique season to dig in. Let’s strive together to know Christ; pressing on to make Him ours, because He has already made us His (Philippians 3:10, 12).
