STUDY AND DEVOTION

At times over the years I’ve struggled to see how personal intimacy with God fits in with intensive study about him. The two things have often seemed in direct conflict.

There have been times, for example, when I have immersed myself in study to the point where the devotional element of my relationship with God has all but disappeared. Theological students over the centuries have found that a common experience. They arrive at their places of learning aglow with personal faith only to find themselves soon buried in Greek, Hebrew, theology and critical studies. Before long they are so absorbed in these subjects that their relationship with God loses first its freshness and then, often, its reality.

But does that have to be the way? Thankfully it doesn’t. If we are studying in the right way we will find ourselves knowing God far more intimately as a result. The key is always to study with a view to gaining personal spiritual benefit. And that happens as we study with an eye to knowing God himself through what we are learning.

Some years ago I read a section in William G.T. Shedd’s Homiletics and Pastoral Theology that helped me in this matter. Commenting on the widely held belief that serious study undermines the spiritual character of a pastor, Shedd writes, “There cannot be a more erroneous judgment than this. The studious, thoughtful Christian is always more unworldly and sincere than the Christian who reads little, and thinks less… The fact is, the holiest men in the Christian Church have been the most studious men” (pp. 284-5, 286). The critical thing, Shedd argues, is that theological studies are pursued for “personal conviction and improvement” (Ibid., p. 294). Where they are followed simply for the sake of gaining knowledge they become a snare.

The late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones held similar convictions. He believed in the importance of study and reading and learning, but he also knew that these things could ruin a person. In his view, the essential thing was always to keep the knowledge of God himself as a person in mind. On one occasion he said, “If your knowledge of the Scriptures and of the doctrines of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ has not brought you to the knowledge of the love of Christ, you should be profoundly dissatisfied and disturbed. All biblical doctrine is about this blessed Person; and there is no greater snare in the Christian life than to forget the person Himself and to live simply on the truth concerning him” (The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, p. 208).

That’s what tends to happen when we study something in the Bible or in theology closely – we lose sight of the Person of God and become absorbed with ideas and words about him. We need to study intensively – the more intensively the better. But as we study we always need to remind ourselves that ultimately what we are dissecting and exploring concerns a Person. When we surface, as it were, and come up from the depths for a breath of air, we need to stand back from the detail and ask ourselves, “What is this saying about God, about the Lord Jesus, about the Holy Spirit?”

If we do that we will find that study and devotion are great friends. Indeed we will find that one of the main reasons we don’t make the progress we might in knowing God is simply because we don’t think and study deeply enough. Remember Shedd’s axiom – it’s worth keeping in mind that as a rule, the holiest Christians are generally the most studious Christians.

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