On many occasions I have had discussions with people to this very matter. Some of the catch phrases that surround this discussion go like this:
You are educated way beyond your level of obedience...
You are an inch deep and a mile wide...
I want to go deeper...
and so much more...
At some point in this whole discussion a person has to ask this question, "what am I doing with this information and knowledge that keeps piling up in my head?" And how will this impact the people around me and my own personal walk?
I am a life-long learner, I personally have 3 different degrees from Grace College and Seminary and have read as much as any person probably has on a yearly basis. So I have a little perspective on this issue. I have attended hundreds of conferences, listened to thousands of videos and podcasts and read thousands of magazines and journals. In fact, I still do all of these things listed above.
But after serving as a Senior pastor for 17 years, I can read between the lines of people when this subject surfaces. Here is what I have concluded in my short life of ministry on earth.
Sometimes the need to go deeper only is an expression to keep a person from having to live out their faith and can build barriers.
Sometimes knowledge alone puffs up and causes individuals to become judgmental and overly critical.
Sometimes the need to go deeper only fills an individual with self pride that they refuse to see in themselves.
Sometimes the need to go deeper only is quite frankly a front to hide a cold callous heart.
Sometimes churches that carry this as their mantra see very few baby baptisms and salvation decisions
Sometimes the need to go deeper only would have left people today not wanting to follow Jesus when he walked on planet earth.
Sometimes the need to go deeper only causes individuals to hammer churches that are willing to do anything to reach lost people and not hammer churches who do nothing to reach them.
But when knowledge and action walk hand in hand, that individual cannot help but to give away his life and live out his faith. And do so, in such a way that thousands are saved. And his passion and love for the Lord grows deeper and deeper.
I am grateful for my training at Grace College and Seminary by men and women who not only went deeper, but challenged me to live it out so that the world could be won to Jesus.
It is virtually impossible for a Spirit-led follower of Christ to not want to go deeper and in turn evangelize the world. They should be inseparable, otherwise why press on?
1 comment:
Its like a cordless drill. You would think that the longer you charge the battery the more powerful the drill would be. However, if you never take the battery off the charger and put it in the drill, you will never accomplish anything. Not only that but if the battery sets on the charger too long it begins to lose its capacity to run the tool that it is designed for.
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