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If you are a Christian, if you’ve spent much time in a church at all, you’ve probably heard the comparison of the Christian life to a long distance race. There is a reason this analogy is used so often. It’s true and it’s biblical! Like any other cultural eccentricity, if you don’t know about running a long distance race then you will naturally miss much of the comparison. What I want to encourage you to do is to think of the pursuit of knowing, understanding, and applying the truths of the Bible to running a distance race.
I have not ran a marathon, nor have I endeavored to train for one. I have not run a half marathon. I have done some running and I have trained for scheduled races, like a 5k, so have some experience and context in which to put this. In order to understand what’s involved for training for a marathon, I went to an article on the subject. In short, the article stated that a pre-requisite for even training for a marathon is running 15-20 miles a week. For most people in our churches running 1 or 2 miles a day for 4 days a week would be an end goal and seem like a long way down the road to achieve. I say that to say, when we hear the comparison we think “oh that would be tough to run a marathon,” without really considering the enormity of the task and putting it in terms of our whole life.
Imagine going from not running at all (just became a Christian) to working your way to running 10-15 miles a week (reading a book of the Bible per month). That is just the beginning. That is the bare minimum. That is the work involved just to get your foot in the door. From there you are talking about a rigorous 18 week schedule where you start running 15 miles a week and progressively increase to running 40 miles per week (reading and studying your Bible for 1-2 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week). Not to mention during that training period you have to work on your diet, sleep schedule, and manage the rest of your life around running.
I hope you understand, whether you know anything about running or not, the process of getting ready to run a marathon is involved. It is temporally demanding, physically demanding, and mentally demanding, requiring consistent perseverance over a long period of time. Knowing God’s word in such a way that you can decipher and speak to tough issues is an even more involved process.
Really knowing and understanding the Bible, and APPLYING it to your life, is much more than an effort of being devoted to reading Scripture for 20-40 min a day, going to church twice a week, and having a once/week Bible study. When we come to hard issues in the Bible – whether life application or doctrinal issues – we cannot expect to know what is right without doing the involved, dedicated work of studying the scriptures.
Maybe you would say, “I agree.” But what about those hard issues in the Bible, hard questions like: how do free will and God’s sovereignty interact, when is Christ returning, is there a millennial reign or not, how does salvation really work inside a person, what does the Holy Spirit do, how do we defend the trinity, and etc.? These are all great, difficult questions to answer well. Sure, anyone could throw out quick, pithy answers to many of these, and they may even be right. What we cannot say, “This is what I think but we cannot really know. God knows so we just need to have faith and rest in that.” What this statement really says is, “I know a verse or two from the Bible about this question/issue/doctrine but I haven’t thought deeply about it or studied hard. I’m ok with my knowledge because that’s all I can understand and all I will understand.”
I have not ran a marathon, nor have I endeavored to train for one. I have not run a half marathon. I have done some running and I have trained for scheduled races, like a 5k, so have some experience and context in which to put this. In order to understand what’s involved for training for a marathon, I went to an article on the subject. In short, the article stated that a pre-requisite for even training for a marathon is running 15-20 miles a week. For most people in our churches running 1 or 2 miles a day for 4 days a week would be an end goal and seem like a long way down the road to achieve. I say that to say, when we hear the comparison we think “oh that would be tough to run a marathon,” without really considering the enormity of the task and putting it in terms of our whole life.
Imagine going from not running at all (just became a Christian) to working your way to running 10-15 miles a week (reading a book of the Bible per month). That is just the beginning. That is the bare minimum. That is the work involved just to get your foot in the door. From there you are talking about a rigorous 18 week schedule where you start running 15 miles a week and progressively increase to running 40 miles per week (reading and studying your Bible for 1-2 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week). Not to mention during that training period you have to work on your diet, sleep schedule, and manage the rest of your life around running.
I hope you understand, whether you know anything about running or not, the process of getting ready to run a marathon is involved. It is temporally demanding, physically demanding, and mentally demanding, requiring consistent perseverance over a long period of time. Knowing God’s word in such a way that you can decipher and speak to tough issues is an even more involved process.
Really knowing and understanding the Bible, and APPLYING it to your life, is much more than an effort of being devoted to reading Scripture for 20-40 min a day, going to church twice a week, and having a once/week Bible study. When we come to hard issues in the Bible – whether life application or doctrinal issues – we cannot expect to know what is right without doing the involved, dedicated work of studying the scriptures.
Maybe you would say, “I agree.” But what about those hard issues in the Bible, hard questions like: how do free will and God’s sovereignty interact, when is Christ returning, is there a millennial reign or not, how does salvation really work inside a person, what does the Holy Spirit do, how do we defend the trinity, and etc.? These are all great, difficult questions to answer well. Sure, anyone could throw out quick, pithy answers to many of these, and they may even be right. What we cannot say, “This is what I think but we cannot really know. God knows so we just need to have faith and rest in that.” What this statement really says is, “I know a verse or two from the Bible about this question/issue/doctrine but I haven’t thought deeply about it or studied hard. I’m ok with my knowledge because that’s all I can understand and all I will understand.”
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I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard people say this, or something similar. It’s said with good intention, I believe. It seeks to acknowledge God’s rightful position and his omniscience. But it undercuts the importance of the revelation he’s given us, it actually shows a lack of faith in the God’s ability to reveal himself to us through the Holy Spirit and deepen our understanding (through our hard work) beyond what we are capable of in our own ability.
Too many people in our churches, too many people who walk around calling themselves a Christian have hardly even dawned their spiritual running shoes, much less put those shoes on the pavement and pursued a spiritual running plan, or worked on their spiritual endurance. Too many of our church members don’t even know how to study their Bible. Sure they read it, but just was walking is far different than running so reading the Bible is far different than studying it.
I hope your response at this moment is one of two things. First, maybe you would ask “How do I study, and how often?” Second, maybe you would firmly say “I have an objection.” If either of these is you, then my next post will address both of these issues. Until then, Press in and press on!
Too many people in our churches, too many people who walk around calling themselves a Christian have hardly even dawned their spiritual running shoes, much less put those shoes on the pavement and pursued a spiritual running plan, or worked on their spiritual endurance. Too many of our church members don’t even know how to study their Bible. Sure they read it, but just was walking is far different than running so reading the Bible is far different than studying it.
I hope your response at this moment is one of two things. First, maybe you would ask “How do I study, and how often?” Second, maybe you would firmly say “I have an objection.” If either of these is you, then my next post will address both of these issues. Until then, Press in and press on!