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As Church people are always learning, we’re wise to think of Church as a school. We have classes, curricula, seminars, and group studies. Jesus called “disciples,” a word that means students, and with some discipline (did you detect “disciple” in “discipline”?) about learning over time. Old churches looked like schoolhouses – and many were!
We read books, and especially God’s great book for all of us, the Bible. Our clergy leaders don’t claim to be closer to God or to have more titanic spiritual experiences, but we have been to intensive seminary schools and continue high level studies while serving. {And I believe our society isn’t as bookish nowadays; we don’t read as much – but there are audiobooks of the Bible and great spiritual classics, and good blogs – like this one you’re reading!)
We value facts, stories, history, names and places, as our faith is about real things that happened in real time. The Bible is unlike most other books. We read, but slowly, re-reading, noticing newer dimensions in the story, even memorizing short segments.
Christian learning isn’t to pass a quiz or to score a degree. We learn the things of God, so there’s a mystery, not mysterious as in confusing, but the mystery of relationships, the mystery that is the mind and heart of God, which we know and never fully comprehend, the delight being in learning and growing deeper and closer.
There’s a quirky kind of mastery in this lifelong quest of Christian education. The more you know about God and the things of God, the more you know of what you don’t know. We learn, and as we learn we unearth more – and better questions. We shed our childish naivete. When we dig deep in Scripture and hold it close to the real and hard experiences of life and the world, we may come to be dis-illusioned – a lovely kind of learning, abandoning simplistic illusions about God, life and the world.
The learning we seek in Church is Wisdom, a searching understanding that takes time, and can make sense of the passing of time, even straining to see things from God’s perspective. Bible knowledge is never just facts about the Canaanites or who was the governor who sentenced Jesus to death. We find our lives and issues in Scripture and how God was with them and so is with us. We listen for what God is asking us to do and be. Not many books get that done.
Christians read and learn widely and openly. For centuries, Christians feared science or what non-Christians have learned. But knowledge is good. God knew it all first. Church encourages Church people to learn boldly and charitably about the world, and what’s going on – from God’s perspective. We learn about people, their psyches, their bodies, their sociological relationships – and then we know more how to love and welcome; we see God’s image, and never pass judgment in our peculiar, churchy way of learning and knowing about others.
God loves it when we learn about the world, its history (after all, God was there and is a master student of history!), and its marvels. Science, space, the depths of the ocean, the echolocation of bats, why flowers grow, how engineers build towering suspension bridges or how doctors repair aneurisms or how Aunt Sally makes those delicious souffles: in the school that is Church, we learn all we can and with the posture of being ready to be amazed, and to praise.
In the school of the Church, we don’t just pray. We learn to pray more closely in tune with the heart of God. We don’t just go do for the poor. We learn about their wounds and loves and we befriend them. In a world of rabid divisiveness, we who are schooled in the Church model how to listen, how to be humble, not to dribble down to common ground but to soar up to higher ground based on higher, godly learning.
James
www.revjameshowell.com
james@mpumc.org
My sermon Sunday on 2 Timothy 3 (“The Bible is Inspired?”) is on YouTube.
And His Name Shall Be Called (my new book – a reflection on Isaiah 9:6, familiar from the rousing chorus in Handel’s Messiah) will be my topic on Wednesday, November 5, 11am, Assembly Hall. Join us! – and get your copy at Goodness Gracious! or anywhere you buy books online.
You’ll enjoy my latest Maybe I’m Amazed podcast with a retired pediatrician sharing her immense wisdom and joy!
Check out my web site, www.revjameshowell.com, where I have a large pile of video and written resources on many topics.
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