I
daydreamed a lot as a kid. Sometimes I
would zone out so completely that I literally stopped in my tracks.
One
day I got lost in thought as I was walking into the house. I was standing in the doorway, one hand on
the handle, one foot in the house, the other foot on the other side of the
threshold on the porch. I don’t know how
long I stood there thinking, but I
remember how Pops brought me back to reality.
“Boy!”
he bellowed, “You ain’t in the d***house
yet!”
In
scholarly study of the Bible we ask questions like "Why would Luke write
this?" or "Why did Paul say such and such?" or "For what
reason did the author of this text add this particular detail?"
Those
are good questions that we should ask.
But
I see theologians concentrate so much on those questions that they never get around
to asking:
Why
did God have this written?
Why
did the Holy Spirit say such and such?
What
is the Divine reason for including this particular detail in the text?
If
we analyze literary structure and the human writer but we never get to God, we’ve
opened a wide door of knowledge, but we ain’t in the d*** house yet.
Jesus
said: You search the Scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. (John 5:39)
The
whole point of engaging Biblical texts
is to engage with God. All of these
books and papers are supposed to bring us into a deeper understanding of the
living God.
Sadly
though, I see a lot of highly educated religious people who have have lost
themselves in scholarly thought, who appear to have quite impressively ”arrived,”
but they are really only standing, lost and spiritually powerless, in the doorway.
always learning and
never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:7)
Remember
why you started this journey. Remember
Who started you on it.
Take your knowledge and go all the way in ---- to God.
Take your knowledge and go all the way in ---- to God.
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield,
Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking
Organization (SAYNO); and director
of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human
Development (NIHD).
Subscribe
to my personal blog www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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Support
by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles
Chapel CME Church
P
O Box 132
Fairfield,
Al 35064
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