Pew Potatoes – Part 3
We cannot keep the words and ways of our Lord at a distance, at arms length, reading, arguing, and fighting about them. We cannot keep them in the academy where PhDs write dissertations and congratulate one another on their novel interpretations. We cannot have Bible study after Bible study, sermon after sermon, explanation without explanation without making that leap to practicing what we have heard. As James said to some of the earliest Christians, we need it repeated so many centuries later: “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like” (James 1). Again, it has to be internalized and practiced; it is not enough to leave it on the page.
An example: Do you remember when you first got your driver’s license? That’s one of the greatest moments of personal freedom ever experienced. How did you learn to drive? I have an idea: Long-sufferingly, your mother or father put you behind the wheel and made you drive. You burned out a clutch or took a half-hour to parallel park, or backed into a tree. It was not nearly as easy as it appeared. But it was all necessary to pass the driver’s exam, when that patrol officer sat in the seat beside you and your palms were so sweaty you could barely hold the wheel. Would you have been ready for the test, however, if you knew all the information about driving, but had never driven? Think about how prepared that teenager would be, who had studied well, but who had never been behind the wheel.
He starts when he is fourteen or fifteen, anticipating that day when he will take the test; he begins to memorize the owner’s manual of his father’s car – every page. He knows that car from front to back, from the fuel injector to the fuse box. He has memorized ever diagram, every safety feature, ever option installed or missing on the vehicle. When he finishes that, we writes the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to get a copy of the 64 page Driver’s Handbook. Again, he memorizes it. From there is referred to the Florida state legislature, where he is given the reams and reams of state laws governing the operation of a automobile. The Florida Highway Patrol, the police districts of every county and city he ever plans to drive through in his life, Consumer Reports on crash testing and performance, The National Highway Safety Board, Teenagers Against Drunk Driving – he gets it all and memorizes it all – he is the best educated teen-driver in the state of Florida, the entire United States. And on the day of his test, he runs over an officer, a senior citizen, and a dog before he even gets out of the DMV parking lot. Why? He never spent any time behind the wheel. He never put into practice, everything he had merely read about it.
Discipleship – Christian growth – spiritual maturity: These are no different. You can earn all the perfect attendance pins, memorize all the Bible stories, win the Bible search contest – who cares! None of this is of any benefit unless you practice it. That’s the only way.
