The Spiritual Discipline of Study

As Christians, What do we believe?

Why?

Jesus made it clear that our knowledge of the truth will set us free. (John 8:32)

Good feelings won’t free us. Ecstatic feelings won’t free us. Getting high on Jesus will not free us. Without a knowledge of the truth we will not be free.

Our lives can be filled with doing “church stuff” and never really be changed or set free because we have never fully embraced the spiritual discipline of study.

Study is not the same as meditation. Meditation is devotional. Study is analytical.

Study dissects what meditation just observes.

Richard Foster says in his book that study involves four things.

Repetition - repeated action, performance, production, or presentation. This is why it is important to examine our actions. What are we repetitively watching, eating, listening to? It matters. This is why we are looking at the spiritual disciplines over a year so we can consistently be reminded of ways we can rightly apprentice under Christ. A root word of discipline is disciple. We are walking out these disciplines to be stronger disciples. Repetition is why we hear so many denominations speaking creeds in their service to look back at the 20 centuries of believers before them who repeated the same thing, to ingrain it in their mind.

Concentration is the second step in study. We live in a culture that does not value concentration. Most people find it impossible to go through the day focusing on one thing. You’re looking at one. But to focus repeatedly on something is to study it. We just need to ask ourselves, what do I focus repeatedly on?

Comprehension is the third step. Jesus does not say the truth alone will set us free, he says that knowing the truth will set us free. To know in biblical terms is an intimate act. We’ve hopefully all had those moments in our walk with God where we went from thinking something to knowing it.

Reflection is the final step of study. Reflecting is a lot like meditating, but instead of meditation geared toward asking what does this mean to me, it is geared toward asking what does this mean. Meaning when we study a book of the Bible we are seeking to be controlled by the intent of the author. We want to hear what he is saying, not what we want him to say. This is why when we study any book we should ask what is the author saying, what does the author mean, and finally ask after our study of those first two questions…is the author right or wrong. We unfortunately like to begin with the question, are they right or wrong. Which brings us to: humility.

Humility is required for proper study, as we must always come as the student, and never the teacher. Especially in Scripture. We are to be apprentices of Jesus, and will never graduate to master.

Our brother and one of the O.G. disciples Peter says

2 Peter 3:15–16 ESV

15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

If Peter struggles to understand. We will struggle to understand.

Richard Foster tells us that we would be wise to not only study books, and God’s Word, but to study nature, to see the order of creation in a tree, a leaf, the flowers in a field etc. They will all teach us as we study. He tells us to study our relationships with each other, our society’s values both real and spoken, and he finally tells us to study ourselves. To realize why we reason the way we do, why we desire the things we desire, and then compare that to other humans in our world, believers and nonbelievers and we will in some ways be able to approach all of the lost in the world with dignity and respect regardless of belief because of the doctrine of imago dei. There is certainly evil in this world, but some are just lost in the battle somewhere between good and evil, God is inviting us to call them home through our discipline of study.

Just a statistic from the SBC churches alone, 75% of all of them are either plateaued or declining.

Kids are leaving the church when they get to adulthood.

They are finding something more satisfying, and fulfilling than the church. And this is not typically complete unbelief, but a God that they consider “better.”

When asked simple questions regarding biblical doctrines many people claiming Christianity did not know why, even if they knew what.

They don’t know the Word of God.

Is it any wonder people are leaving the church?

Does the church even know who it is?