Head or Heart?

Jesus was forever getting into arguments with ‘the experts in the law’. These were men who had made the detailed study of the Scriptures the all-consuming focus of their lives. They knew them inside-out. What’s more, they were so concerned that nothing that God commanded should be neglected that they added extra rules as a kind of fence to make sure that nobody trespassed into forbidden territory.

Years ago, I spent five years in full-time academic theology. Theology is an interesting word. It really means ‘the study of God’. But in practice, theologians study doctrine. It’s intellectual, all in the head, and for that reason easily becomes lifeless. The teachers of the law in Jesus’ time were like that. And I have to say, I was going in that direction too.

My theology was, as people used to say then, ‘sound’. It was biblical. It was evangelical. But it was all in my head. And, what’s more, it bred a very critical spirit within me. Whenever I read a book or listened to someone preaching, I was always on the watch-out for some doctrinal slip-up; and that blocked my spiritual ears from hearing what God wanted me to hear.

I think I was a pretty hard nut to crack. God took His time, and saw me through some personally very hard situations, until I was able to let Him touch my spirit and speak His truth right into the very core of my being. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is something that I now so often pray for myself: I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give (me) the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that (I) may know Him better (Ephesians 1:17).

Of course, the truth that God speaks to us will always fit the biblical revelation to perfection. The trouble is that we so easily read our own prejudices and preconceptions into Scripture. We can, almost without recognising it, shape Scripture to our minds rather than allowing God’s word to shape our thinking as He speaks to us through Scripture. I love studying the Bible and making sure that I understand exactly what the words mean. I’m so grateful for the skills my academic theology gave me. But they are my servants, not my masters as I seek to hear what God is saying to me.

I still sometimes struggle with that old critical spirit. Not every book, not every sermon, is one hundred percent doctrinally correct. But if my spiritual ears are open to God’s voice, that will drown out what’s not of Him. And even when it doesn’t, He will enable me to handle it with humility and love.