What level are you?
In the wake of my Twitter criticism, my wife and I have had a lot of good conversations. We have 
been discussing the way most tend to error on one side or the other. Either people are too intellectual and fail to see the whole Gospel, or they are too emotional and fail to understand the whole Gospel.
To figure out where we are, we have to ask one question.
“Why do I read the Bible?” Our answer will tell us a lot about who we are. I think the reality is, many of us probably cannot answer the question because we do not know. Most answers will either be based on the need for knowledge (I want to learn about God, history, doctrine, etc) or emotion (I want to be closer to God because he makes me warm and fuzzy).
What happens beneath the surface is we tend to embrace intellectualism or we embrace an emotional faith with no balance in between. For most people, faith either stops at either the head or the heart with a traffic jam resulting from pride, stopping the flow between the two.
This weekend I heard it best.
We have turned our faith into a list of approvals. We have decided our faith is performance based. If we read our Bibles, God will bless us for living up to His standard, if not, He will pour out His wrath on us. We have turned faith into a video game; “if I memorize three verses, I will get to the next level. Cast out a demon or see someone healed and I am well on my way to winning the game!”
Along the way (in our “game”), some decide the best way to outfit ourselves is with weapons. For the intellectual, the weapon is their brain and how much they think they know. Big words and deep philosophies. The more they know, the more they level-up.
For the emotional types, they bring experiences. They use their “mountains top experiences” to fight to the next level. The more tingles they feel and the more happiness and joy experienced, the better they are doing.
Way to sell ourselves short, guys (and girls).
I see this all the time on the Internet and in person. I see Twitter accounts and blogs all about the explanation of deep theological and doctrinal thoughts without one bit of it transforming hearts. They (dare I say, we) have boiled faith down to a history and philosophy class. On the emotional side, we see people who use Scripture as magic words, don’t know squat about doctrine, and live inconsistent lives according to their faith.
We are supposed to know Jesus.
Our lives are one of glorifying and magnifying Christ in all things. We cannot do this if we do not know Jesus. We fail to truly know Jesus if we boil our Christianity down to intellectualism or emotional responses. We fail to know Jesus if we do not let the Holy Spirit and power of the Gospel transform our hearts.
The true “end game” is to know and love Christ, preach Christ crucified, and in all things glorify Christ.
-Don-
Your line about memorizing verses and casting out a demon to advance to the next level is funny. I laughed until I thought, "Wait. He's talking about me. And I don't even play video games. I avoid those so I can do more spiritual things with my time [the next level]."
LOL. I love it! BTW, good to see you back on the Internets. Take last week off?
I did take the week off. I needed a break, needed to do some serious thinking and praying, and I was a busy…finals are here.
Well put. Unfortunately opinions like this are either well received and ignored later, not received or shatter egos. I tend to prefer it when they shatter egos.
I am a fan of shattered egos too. It just seems like it is often mine getting the shattering.
It seems to me that a combination of knowledge and emotion is what leads you to the "end game." For while one can read the Bible to gain knowledge for sure, however to me it seems to be impossible to love God without the emotion. The emotion of heart wrenching drive you to your knees realization that God has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves, the excitement of discovery of a new truth for which God has given us to share, and the sadness and gladness of God showing us our sin for which to repent.
I really enjoy your thought provoking posts.
Amen Jim. I believe emotions are important as, well, God gave them too us for a reason. But we cannot live for the mountain top. Same with intellect. We cannot live for the debates and so forth.
Thanks for stopping by…again.
I read the Bible because I enjoy it. I enjoy opportunity to know God more and allow Him to teach me as I read and study. I try to live my life by "Loving God and Loving Others" and watch everything fall into place as I strive after Him. It is an interesting adventure that I am learning to do as I break away from Christianity (the religion) and step into life as a disciple. As I say this however, it is an adventure that I enjoy and am not good at!! But I guess this gives God an opportunity to work through my imperfection and build my character!!
Back in the day…there was a sega Genesis video game called either "exodus" or "Moses" I can't remember. It was excellent. You were Moses and you walked around looking for Manna. it was cheesy Christianity at its best. However there were also cheesy games (non-Christian focused) like the Micheal Jackson game where you saved little kids with the help of your monkey and dance powers!!!
ABACAB….need I say more?
I find the easiest way to move up a level is to hold down both A and B and keep pressing start until I hear a chime…. Just a little theo-loophole no one wants you to know about…
Seriously though Don, great post. Intellect without passion is boring; passion without intellect is dangerous.
I like your quote "Intellect without passion is boring; passion without intellect is dangerous. " I might steal it from time to time.
Definitely had the more emotional side from starting off at VCC. Then I started to study and got more balanced, but still more emotional. Then my theology turned reformed theology. Now I struggle with the intellect more. Stinking balances! Maybe if I pray in tongues while I consult Calvin's commentaries…..
LOL!
I think you hit on a good point. We often think of maturity in Christ as becoming smarter instead of becoming sanctified. I blame reformed theology.