I went back to school this week.
Here’s how it was – I saw a notice in the church bulletin for a three session course on Christian Life and Witness, sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
I thought, “That has to be good; I should go.” and so I went.
Part of the little course package they handed out was a DVD. When I received it, I thought, “Oh, goody. More overproduced Christian cultural advertising.”
But it’s not. Its the entire NIV bible as .mp3 and as text… And the NIV is the good version – the 1973 copyright version that’s not going public domain any time soon. Score!
I love getting stuff. Who doesn’t love getting stuff? It makes me feel Great to get stuff. I just got the most tremendous jag when I realized I’d gotten a whole free audio NIV and a whole free html version of the NIV.
But then I thought to my little idolatrous self – I have NIVs scattered about my house. I can search the entire NIV text online, already.
Our modern information age is making a spiritual truth more important than ever. This might eventually be a good thing; it might force us to learn something the hard way that we would otherwise never have bothered to learn.
In the Gospels, Jesus talks to a rich young ruler who knows everything and who has done everything. He’s flawless, and yet Jesus is able to speak right to the heart of what he needs. The ruler comes asking, “What must I do to gain eternal life?” and Jesus is able to pick out what the ruler hasn’t done.
The ruler hasn’t received the Scriptures inside him. He has read them and obeyed them and has followed all the commandments since he was a boy, but he hasn’t received God’s word inside him. This is why he is confused about eternal life, and this is why he ultimately goes away sad. Although the ruler has engaged the scriptures at a shallow level, Jesus opens up a deeper level to them.
“I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
The psalmist’s declaration talks about receiving the Word of God. There’s scripture we know and have, and then… there’s Scripture we receive. Scripture we accept and make a part of us. The psalmist is talking about words to live by.
On the internet, information is becoming ever cheaper and cheaper. I have access to more information than I could ever glut myself on in a thousand lifetimes. But the only information that does me any good is the information that I take advantage of. Simply the state of having it available to me does me no good whatsoever. I look at it all and I get really sad, because I’d like to harvest it all, but I can’t.
If our modern internet world will teach us one thing, it will teach us that information is useless and that informed living is priceless.
Simply reading the scripture without making any commitment to doing what it says will put me in the same boat – walking away sad.
You’ll have to let us know how the course was – they’re offering it here too, but my schedule is currently full!
I didn’t realize before I attended, but they’re running the course in preparation for an event. It makes sense – run the training to prepare people for the big shindig.
Perhaps the first word to be said about the course is, “Simple.”
I might do a breakdown of the course – it’s quite interesting what they chose to put in.
“I have access to more information than I could ever glut myself on in a thousand lifetimes.”
Ahh, there’s a considerable qualitative difference between the satiation that comes from gluttony (glut myself) and the decrease in appetite that comes from being weaned.
The information blizzard does not encourage thoughtful meditation on truth.