New Life
3/31/2011 | Author: RCW
I hope you are enjoying the recent series of posts regarding reading and learning as a part of healthy growth in the Christian faith.  If you are, I hate to break it to you, but this entry is only minimally related to that topic.

My wife is about 2 weeks from her due date.  We are welcoming our first child into this world in just a handful of days.  It's truly a wonderful, scary, and exciting time.  And although I did read a great book in the early months that helped me tremendously to process the reality that I was going to be a dad, my emotions (as well as my wife's) have been all over the place.
 
But aside from my wife and I's own prayerful anxiety about bringing a daughter into this world, the real story is --- well, our daughter.  In less than a couple of weeks, a new life will emerge from our lives.  She will be --- all at once --- her mother and me.  This new bundle of joy is going to be welcomed into our family and is going to experience real life!  What a miracle!

But here is what I have been thinking of today... What if my daughter never grew?  What if we fed her and loved her and did everything we could to help her develop as she ought, and she simply wouldn't grow?  God forbid it, but would that not be awful?  It would be an unbelievable abnormality that would very likely put her life itself in serious jeopardy.

But the gripping fact is that Christians do the same thing all the time.  And frequently, churches don't do much to help.  A person might make a decision, walk an aisle, check a box, or pray a prayer...in some way he or she accepts Jesus Christ and enters into new life in Christ.  Hooray!  We have a new creation!  A spiritual infant has been "born again" into God's family!  (Is this not the very Biblical metaphor that Jesus used?)  What an amazing miracle!  And yet, most will stagnate.  Most will not grow.  Most will remain spiritual babes.  Most will seldom nourish themselves with the scriptures, pray, or serve God with any consistency.  Worse still, a few weeks, months, or years may pass so that being still infants in Christ, they begin to wonder why their life isn't all that much different.  They may even seriously question their original decision or feel duped by those that offered them this "new life" in Christ.  It happens ALL.....THE.......TIME. 

I personally work for a church.  If I were to summarize my role there, I'd say my job is to help Christian adults grow and develop in their faith.  Would it surprise you if I told you that I tend to desire the spiritual growth of those adults far more than they desire it?  (This is not a slam to the church I work at...it is simply a statement of the actuality that faces most congregations in the U.S.).  
 
So how can you start growing? Here's a great starting point:

  1. Get a good Bible.  Read it regularly, take notes, write down what you learn and what questions you have, even underline and memorize the verses that strike you as worth memorizing.
  2. Ask God to help you grow, believe that He'll bring it about, and desire it more than anything else.
  3. Plug into an authentic Biblical community that strives to help you spiritually develop.  Get to know a few committed Christians within that community that you can tell are serious about their relationship with God and live it out in all they do.
  4. Begin to use and even leverage your natural abilities, skills, gifts, possessions, time, finances, and your whole self to be a part of spreading the good news about Christ and living out your faith with everything God gives you.  In short, serve God and be a steward of what He's given you so that you might bring Him glory. 
If you already feel like you've done the above, check yourself.  Ask yourself these tough questions and answer honestly:
  1. When was the last time I spent time reading my Bible?  Am I faithfully involved in personal Bible study and time alone with God?  Have I read any spiritually nourishing material lately?
  2. How much time do I spend in prayer?  Do I talk to God about everything?  Do I talk to God throughout the day?  Or do I simply reserve prayer for before meals, at church, before bed, etc.?  When I do pray, do I just ask him for stuff I want, or do I actually have a real relationship with Him that goes beyond that type of interaction?
  3. Is my church committed to seeing me grow spiritually?  Do they care as much about turning me into a faithful and authentic follower of Christ as they do about seeing new people pray the same prayer I did to receive Christ?  Have I sought and found Biblical community within my local church?  Have I involved myself with other believers and developed strong relationships there or have I been passive and retreated from being known by others?  Is the Biblical community I am involved with at church really serious about growing or are we just a social group that seems stuck and apathetic?
  4. Finally, how am I serving and being a steward?  Am I giving faithfully of my time, talents, money, and energy to see God's rule and reign in the hearts and lives of others?  Or am I holding back and sitting on the sidelines?  What more could I be doing to further God's work in my church, in my community, and in my world?
  5. If people followed me around all day every day for a month, would my life clearly tell them that I am a follower of Christ who reflects who He is?

-RCW
Speaking of "Tolle Lege"...
3/18/2011 | Author: RCW
For those of you who have been enjoying my material lately about the connection between reading and discipleship – that is, between learning and growing as a Christian—I will take the liberty of telling you about some other resources out there.

For starters, you might be interested in this very insightful blog that I have just discovered and enjoy.  (You might find that the material there at Tolle Lege resonates with the material here on Faith Firmly Rooted.) 

For the ambitious who might be wanting some sort of personal learning experience or perhaps desiring to get to know other Christians who highly value learning, I highly recommend the Paideia / University Honors Program Conference at Dallas Baptist University that is happening on April 1-2, 2011.  The theme this year for the conference is: "Tolle, Lege, Tolle, Lege – Pick it up and read: On Books and Reading.”  (Click here for details.)*  The keynote speaker this year is Byron Borger, who operates Hearts and Minds Books.  Who knows…the conference could open you up to a whole new world you did not know existed!

I guess I can summarize this entire blog entry really briefly…If you are digging my recent posts, you might also like:
  • This blog
  • This Conference on April 1-2 in Dallas at one of my alma maters
  • This bookstore / blog

Happy reading, learning, and growing!

-RCW

* This conference is put together by a couple of my favorite former professors, who also happen to be wholehearted advocates of the benefits of reading widely and deeply both inside and outside of scripture on account of how it can spiritually shape us.  As for the conference itself, if you don’t know what to expect from the conference, imagine the following: A bunch of people who take Christian faith and learning seriously coming together for a time of worship, a keynote speaker talking twice on the conference theme of “Reading Books” especially as it pertains to Christian life, then getting to attend breakout sessions where papers will be presented on a wide array of themes (including the conference theme) by the various Christian intellectuals who are in attendance.  Personally, it is killing me that I can’t be at the conference this year, but I highly encourage you to go if you are interested… just maybe give Dr. Naugle a heads up that you plan to attend. 
A Brief Review
In my last post, I mentioned Augustine and how reading was instrumental in his own coming to faith in Jesus Christ as his own Savior and Lord (or to call those roles something less familiar - his Rescuer and his King).


I mentioned how at first, Augustine had turned his back on God (and that according to his own acknowledgement, this had resulted in part from reading authors like Cicero.  Apparently, Augustine's self-serving ego and arrogance inflated as he acquired knowledge from them).  But later, Augustine was brought by God to pick up a book by Cicero that is now lost to antiquity...Cicero's Hortensius, which was essentially a work that praised and encouraged people toward the discipline of philosophy, since philosophy is by its very etymology and definition the love of wisdom.  Suddenly, Augustine found within himself a desire to know real wisdom, to be taught truth, to personally love wisdom intensely enough to pursue it as a prize.  Augustine also said that he knew that to acquire real wisdom, he would have to travel in the direction of understanding the scriptures that he had grown up with, but had eventually neglected and scorned.  As Paul stated, in his letter to the Colossians, Augustine was well aware that "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (2:3).  Or to state it yet another way, Augustine knew deep within himself that to get to truth, he would have to be moved closer toward The Truth, Christ Himself, the God of the Bible, Ultimate Reality.  

More to the Story
But I also mentioned that there was more to the story.  There is a second major way that Augustine's conversion was tied to the discipline of reading.*  He tells us of it in Book VIII of his Confessions.

    Through a continual lifelong series of events and experiences--an experience reading Cicero in the midst of his very rigorous academic pursuits, encounters with Christians, exposure to the scriptures, through the constant prayers of his faithful Christian mother, through the influence of Ambrose, and much more--Augustine reached a personal crisis of sorts.  He had to wrestle with his will.  He was divided within himself.  On the one hand, he wanted to retain his own selfish pleasures and ungodly habits.  On the other hand, he was increasingly unable to resist the persistent calling of God unto Himself.  
     Eventually, Augustine claims that God allowed him to see himself clearly and become aware of his own sinful and wicked condition.  Distraught, Augustine retreats to a garden and the tears start pouring.  As Augustine pours his heart out to God in agony, he asks the Lord how long he will be torn between belief and unbelief, how long will he remain a miserable slave to his own evil desires.  
    But I can summarize no longer.  Augustine must share it with you himself:
       
      As I was saying this and weeping in the bitter agony of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or a girl (I do not know which), saying and repeating over and over again 'Pick up and read, pick up and read.' At once my countenance changed...I checked the flood of tears and stood up. I interpreted it solely solely as a divine command to me to open the book...So I hurried back to the place where...I had put down the book of the apostle when I had got up.  I seized it, opened it and in silence read the first passage on which my eyes lit: 'Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts' (Rom. 13:13-14). 
       
      I neither wished nor needed to read further.   At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart.  All the shadows of doubt were dispelled [VIII.XII].**
      The Latin phrase "Tolle Lege, Tolle Lege" (Take up, Read!  Take up, Read!) continues to resound for those who would seek to know Christ and follow after him. 

      -RCW

      *Certainly there were other ways that reading influenced his conversion and faith.  For example, Augustine speaks of he and his friends' experiences watching (and intruding upon) Ambrose's very disciplined reading habits. 

      **Translation is Chadwick's.
      Augustine and Reading (Part 1)
      3/11/2011 | Author: RCW
      I mentioned previously that several early Christians had a more positive opinion than Tertullian did concerning the value of reading both inside and outside of scripture.

      For one of the most amazing and influential Christians, St. Augustine, reading was a key that God used to bring about his conversion.  In Augustine's famous Confessions (a classic work in literature, philosophy, theology, spirituality, and Christianity), Augustine cites several ways that reading influenced his spirituality and even his conversion to Christianity.
        Augustine explains that even though reading Cicero had originally helped to push him away from God, he had been living apart from God and living entirely for himself until reading Cicero pushed him to return to God...
           
          In the ordinary course of study, I fell upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all admire, not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius*. But this book altered my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself, O Lord; and made me have other purposes and desires. Suddenly every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of wisdom with an incredible ardour in my heart. I began to rise up and return to you.  [Confessions, III. IV].**
           
          He continues: 
            My God, how I burned, how I burned with longing to leave earthly things and fly back to you. I did not know what you were doing with me. For "with you is wisdom" (Job 12:13, 16)...This book [Cicero's Hortensius] kindled my love for it [wisdom].  There are some people who use philosophy to lead people astray...That text is a clear demonstration of the salutary admonition given by your Spirit through your good and devoted servant (Paul): "See that no one deceives you by philosophy and vain seduction following human tradition; following the elements of this world and not following Christ, in him dwells all the fullness of divinity in bodily form" (Col. 2:8-9).  At that time, as you know...I did not yet know these words of the apostle.  Nevertheless, the one thing that delighted me in Cicero's exhortation was the advice "not to study one particular sect, but to love and seek and pursue and hold fast and strongly embrace wisdom itself, wherever found". [ibid.]
              And yet, Augustine explains that that Cicero's book couldn't entirely grip him because it failed to mention Christ, whom he almost innately knew to be the real source of truth.  He "therefore decided to give attention to the holy scriptures and to find out what they were like" [ibid, III.V].
              Augustine's story gets better and involves more about reading...But I will have to continue his story in the next entry.   


            -RCW

            *One of my biggest disappointments in life is that we don't really have an existing copy of Cicero's Hortensius, which was basically an "Exhortation to Philosophy." All we have are small fragments that give us a general idea of its outline. 

            **My translation is mostly that of Henry Chadwick and only minimally from Edward Pusey's.
            Francis Bacon on Reading
            3/07/2011 | Author: RCW
            One of my many favorite philosophers is Francis Bacon...*

            Bacon had some pretty sound advice when it comes to reading.  You can find it in his essay                "Of Studies":


                          Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and       
                          discourse; but to weigh and consider.  Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and 
                          some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts;                     
                          others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention... 

            In layman's language,  Bacon is saying:

                Don't read a book...
            • simply to prove it wrong.   [He wasn't really talking about the Bible, but many skeptics read the Bible this way...with their conclusions already deeply fixed in their mind before they've read a single word.] 
            • thinking it or its author is beyond error.  [Again, he wasn't really talking about the Bible, but many people do read it this way**...and I'm not entirely sure that Bacon would have had a problem with it though I'm definitely no Francis Bacon expert.] 
            • just to have something to talk about with others.  [These people are annoying...especially since they rarely choose anything worthwhile to read.  I don't think Francis Bacon would think of People magazine or Cosmo as "reading" or "studies" if you're wondering.]
                Instead, Bacon suggests that we read a book in order that we might weigh and consider what it
                is saying.  Read a book with your brain turned on, using your critical thinking skills -- not distrusting
                the book, nor being overly trusting of the book to the point of naivety.   

            Many Christians I know (and tragically, even some pastors) have far too much trouble even knowing how to discern what is a good book from what is in all reality not.  I have personally lamented that the problem with America is not that we can't read, it is that we don't read.  And even the people who do read, too often don't read anything worthwhile. 

            Thoughts?  Comments?

            -RCW

            * I mostly enjoy Bacon's essays and am much less fond of his idealistic modernist belief that science and technology could ultimately create a Utopian society.  The twentieth century, postmodernism, and human experience have since well-refuted that fanciful notion [although Biblical wisdom had refuted the idea ages before].  If you want to understand modernity and my last couple of sentences a little bit better, read this book.  As for Bacon, I know for certain that he was a theist, and I think to a lesser extent some people conclude he was a Christian.  And if you're wondering, No, I don't believe he's any relation to Kevin Bacon.
             
            ** I have no problem with people reading the Bible this way provided they also at some point recognize that while the Bible is a divine book, the Bible didn't magically float down from heaven.  God didn't bypass the humanity of the human writers, their circumstances, their language, their personalities, their brains, their emotions, or the like when He inspired them to write. But this blog entry is not really meant to be about Biblical inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration, etc.
            So, I had better just spit it out.  Some of you have contacted me to let me know that you are waiting on me to finish my thought.   :) 

            What I plan to do from time to time this year is to post some great quotes occasionally from books I have read.  Some of these might be books written by penned by Christians.  Some might not be penned by Christians.  All of them will be interesting.  All of them will encourage us to grow in our Christian faith.

            Tertullian was an early Christian who—even though he was well-versed in the pagan literature of his surrounding world—scorned the notion that such literature had any benefit for Christians.  His famous question was “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”  His question anticipated a definite answer: Nothing.*
            But some other early figures in the history of Christianity took a different position.  I’ll tell you about them very soon.

            In some ways, the question for us to ponder might be: What’s my attitude toward books, movies, or music that is not “Christian”?  Do they have anything to offer me?  Is there anything redeemable in them?  It probably isn’t hard to guess my position, but don’t think Tertullian was completely off target.

            -RCW
            * There is certainly need to take Tertullian's words within their context and remember that in particular he was speaking not against learning, but mainly against heretical philosophical systems and speculations that lacked any real standard for resolving disputes.  One website, www.earlychurch.org.uk, has a helpful explanation (and defense) of Tertullian here.