Scholarship and Faith

A friend on "Facebook" had this interesting (and convicting?) quote under his favorite quotes. "The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole like will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament." Soren Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard was never one to mince words, but now he's gone to meddling. I love my theological education (ongoing). But I know the experience about which he writes. Many years ago, in preaching school, I nearly fell into a depression, because the more I studied the Bible the more I felt like a pitiful disciple of Jesus. That wasn't a healthy place to be.

Yet, I am sure at time I have strayed to the other extreme. The more I studied, the more the Bible became an academic exercise, meant to be analyzed, scrutinized, and theologically categorized. Living it? Obeying it? As soon as I get done studying it.

But this is not a problem just in academic settings. This is a problem that infects the Churches of Christ, the Restoration Movement, and other communities who emphasize the study of the Bible as the height of Christian activity. A few times I have tried to reduce the amount of time we spent in communal Bible study, so that we could do some ministry for others together. The result? Well, let's just say we are back to spending all of our time in Bible study.

It is clear to me that we have made Bible study as the height of Christian discipleship. One man in my congregation can hardly forgo a single class without quoting from 2 Tim. 2:15; "Study to show thyself approved..." Studying the Bible is great. It is empowering. But empowering to what? If it is just so I know more answers than the Baptist church down the road, then it is meaningless. It should empower us to live it, to obey it. Let's not be busy studying the Bible that we have no time to carry the cross.