The Bible exhorts people to learn. It is not for purposes of winning at trivia games, passing tests or getting a good GPA. It is for spiritual growth. This spiritual education is democratic, meaning that it is available to every Christian, no matter their IQ or college degrees.
Education can come in a variety of forms. It doesn’t have to just be classroom instruction. I remember a professor saying that education comes in more ways than just sitting in a room facing forward and listening to an instructor. That was eye-opening to me. A personal note: when I was done with seminary, I didn’t care if I never took another class as long as I lived. My barrel was full! But the education continues. I did, and do, a lot of reading.
Another form of learning is trial and error. You could say I got quite an education that way this past week.
We had a water drain backing up next to the foundation of the house. Water from the roof came through the downspout and overflowed. Something was blocking the line. Not good and not easily fixed.
I called a plumber. He brought a machine that was supposed to blow out the blockage with high-pressure water. But the line was so clogged he couldn’t do it. He ran a camera line up the line, at least as far was he could. There was root intrusion that had broken the PVC pipe. The pipe would have to be dug up.
I decided to do the job myself, although I’d never done anything like that before. How hard could it be–digging up the ground and replacing PVC pipe?
There was a process beyond just digging it up. I had to get the “call before you dig” people to come out and mark the lawn to show where the utility lines were. I also had to fill out a city permit application and paid the fee.
After digging the trench (for this part I enlisted the help of my son and son-in-law) I was able to better assess the situation. The pipe was not just damaged but also clogged with roots or leaves for the full 22 feet between the downspout and the street.
The fix involved multiple trips to Home Depot and the watching of YouTube videos. Some things I learned: that 3-inch PVP pipe is actually 3.5 inches on the outside, how to glue the pieces of pipe together, that you have to run tracer wire along the pipe so they can detect it in the future, and that you should put gravel under the pipe or else it might sag if it was just lying on dirt. The job was interrupted by rain. But yesterday we filled in the trench and the job was done. It was a lot of effort and some frustration, but I learned some things. Education involves effort. Some say that education involves pain. Perhaps because it takes efforts or pain some do not want to put in the effort to learn. But stagnation has real consequences in the spiritual area.
There are two New Testament passages that criticize Christians for stagnating. Both use the ‘milk verses solid food’ analogy. The milk symbolizes the ABC’s, the lessons for children. Grownups should move beyond that to the ‘solid food’.
The first example is from the Apostle Paul. He criticizes the Corinthian church for having divisions. Their divisions are linked to ignorance: “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul’, and another, ‘I follow Apollos’, are you not mere men? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task,” (1 Corinthians 3:1-5). The congregation’s refusal to learn made them worldly and disunited. They followed human and the factions fell into childish bickering. This was the consequence of their failure to progress. Our Lord expects his followers to have unity under Him. Human leadership in the church has its place, but only as it points to our Lord. The church is not a popularity contest.
The second example is in the book of Hebrews. Their problem was a failure of discernment. The author criticizes the congregation with these words: “…you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil,” (Hebrews 5:11-14). In this case the failure to learn resulted in a loss of discernment. Their spiritual senses were dulled. We see it today. Cults deceive people, liberal churches are unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, people preach false Christs and false gospels… The devil has planted all kinds of diversions to lead us astray; after all, he masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). That’s why we need discernment. It is a skill that should be honed, and it is honed by spiritual learning.
Both cases–the divisions of Corinthians and the lack of discernment in the book of Hebrews–were caused by a failure to learn. Overcoming ignorance does not mean having to enroll at a Bible college or seminary, although some feel that that is the path they need to take. It does not mean watching more podcasts, although some of those may help.
I believe there are two best ways to get this learning:
1) Doing personal Bible reading every day. Read the Bible for yourself. Let God speak to you through this primary source of his revelation unfiltered by any outside human input. Some passages may be hard to understand. That doesn’t matter, you may understand them later. There will be plenty that you will understand.
2) By attending a local church and listening to the sermon. If the preacher is doing his job at all (and he should or you shouldn’t attend there) you will hear the Word of God and get some trusted explanation of it.
Stagnation doesn’t announce itself with trumpets. But it has real consequences.