“With Our Whole Existence”: Knowing God through the Spiritual Discipline of Learning
Versi Bahasa Indonesia dari tulisan ini sudah lebih dulu dimuat di WarungSaTeKaMu.org dengan judul “Dengan Segenap Keberadaan”: Mempraktikkan Disiplin Rohani Belajar.
A year ago, I wrote about how I learned to follow Christ from my experience as a fan of the football club Liverpool. Having supported them since 2005, I know their accomplishments, tactics, recruitment strategy, etc. very well. However, my relationship with Liverpool stops at "a mere fan"; I don't know the players and coaching staff at a personal level.
This illustration shows that we would find out, study, and memorise things that are attractive to us, perhaps even with a level of enthusiasm that exceeds our passion for the LORD God Himself.
"Not that I'm not passionate, Jeff, but I fear of becoming proud if I know too much," you may respond.
It's true that "[k]nowledge puffs up…" (1 Cor. 8:1), but that seemingly humble remark actually masks a dangerous form of pride: I’m too “low” for the truths of God. It’s this arrogance that was exhibited by the 1st-century Jews who refused to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, as witnesses by Paul. They were zealous for the Lord, but not according to the right knowledge of Him; they only cared for their own version of truth (Rom. 10:2–3). It’s this illusion of having “knowledge” that produces pride.
However, in his discourse in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul pointed to another kind of knowledge that doesn’t produce pride. Instead, this knowledge gives birth to meekness and love in our heart through which others are built. Where does this love originate? The Lord who is love (1 Jn. 4:8) who loves and knows us before we had even existed (1 Jn. 4:19; 1 Cor. 8:3). It is this understanding of “learning” in the context of God’s love which we’re going to explore further.
Matthew 22:15–46 recorded a series of events that I coin as a “battle of wits in four rounds” between Jesus and Jewish scholars of His time. My experience in high school debate taught me that those who have the first move usually have a higher chance of winning. That’s what Jesus’s debate opposition did in the first three rounds. With the intention “to entangle Him in His words” (v. 15), they took the initiative of attack. Unfortunately, none of their bullets was able to dent Jesus’s wall of defence:
- Concerning paying taxes to Caesar (vv. 15–21), He answered, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (v. 21);
- To the Saduccees’ question about the resurrection from the dead (vv. 23–33), Jesus rebuked, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (v. 29) before giving further explanation of the topic; and
- Lastly, an expert of the Law tested the Lord with one hard question, “[W]hich is the great commandment in the Law?” (v. 36). So Jesus replied (vv. 37–39):
37 And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
Not only could Lord Jesus wisely counter all the attacks coming His way, He even shifted to offence in the last round by asking the Pharisees about the relationship between King David and the Messiah (vv. 41–46). But Jesus’s utter victory over the Pharisees and teachers of the Law in their intellectual debates is not the main point here. Rather, this passage shows how Jesus in His divinity as the Son of God still committed Himself to intentionally learn the Word of His Father (cf. Jn. 7:15–16; Lk. 24:25–27). Although the Bible doesn’t record the full account of the Lord’s childhood, after recounting an event that happened when Jesus was 12, Luke remarked: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man” (Lk. 2:52).
As the purpose of us practising spiritual discipline is to become more like Christ, it’s natural to ask, “How do I learn as Lord Jesus learns?” Surely not in the exact manner as the Jews did ~2,000 years ago. Nevertheless, we who live in the 21st century can learn as Jesus did by deriving the same principles that He applied and then contextualising them to the present day. That’s what I did when I shared the 7 tactics to redeem the time in the third article.
So, what are the principles of learning which Lord Jesus holds onto?
From the Lord’s life, His explanation of the Great Commandment, and the Biblical passages quoted earlier, I learned that the spiritual discipline of learning takes the form of two actions:
LEARN = Love + EARN
#1. Love the Lord with our entire being (v. 37)
If you’ve ever read the earlier books of the Bible, surely you can recognise that Jesus quoted the Great Commandment from there. The first commandment can be found in Deuteronomy 6:4–5:
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Notice that Lord Jesus was not misquoting when He only listed heart, soul, and mind (v. 37). While the Greek (which was commonly used by the Jews during Jesus’ time) and English languages use two distinct words for human emotion (“heart”) and cognition (“mind”), these are one in Hebrews (“heart” / lêbâb). On the other hand, “soul” in Deuteronomy 6:5 means “life energy” while “might” is used as an adverb to describe the superlative degree with which the main verb “love” is to be performed. In other words, the first commandment instructs us to love the Lord with all our existence: with every action, thought, and feeling, every second, without exception. In this context, our love for God takes a concrete form when we discipline ourselves to know more of Him who has been knowing and loving us (1 Cor. 8:3) even before we were conceived in our mother’s womb (Ps. 139:14–17). You’re not reading this wrongly: one of the ways we love Christ is by learning.
Unfortunately, learning—which is identical to reading a book—may be one of the activities that we despise (the most) growing up. Alas, in general, the current education system does focus only on training our reason without nurturing the growth of our emotion and psyche. In his book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis warned that prioritising the mind over the heart and the psyche would only produce “men without chests”. Approximately 80 years since his warning, we can observe two results that I have mentioned in the beginning: either we grow prideful because we think we know everything (1 Cor. 8:1–2) or because we feel that we’re too “low” to know more about God (Rom. 10:2–3).
Praise the LORD, for the salvation power of Christ has filled that hole in our chests through various methods of learning and practices of spiritual discipline! Learning in the light of Christ (Ps. 36:9) isn’t always practised by reading; every person has his/her own learning style and methods that are most appropriate to him/her, e.g. experimenting the theories directly in the field, listening to podcasts, contemplating in a journal, and discussing with others. Moreover, the other nine practices of spiritual discipline are direct ways from God so that we may learn to know and love Him more. When we make time to learn through various means, our whole existence fellowships with the Lord (1 Cor. 13:12) who fills the universe with His glory (Hab. 2:14), He who loves by sending His one and only Son to die in atonement for sin (Jn. 1:29).
When our mind, soul, and heart harmonise and synergise to love and know God with all our might, we know for certain that we won’t be able to know the holy God as we should in the present time. Instead of becoming arrogant, we become humble and grow in the knowledge of Christ (2 Pet. 3:18, cf. Pro. 9:9–10). Moreover, by learning from various sources (e.g. our own experiences, books, and others’ testimonies), our mind is continuously being renewed and we “may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1–2). Becoming more like Jesus through learning means growing in the wisdom of God so that we can navigate life according to His will, both in making decisions, waiting for the Lord, and serving Him faithfully.
Here is the foundational truth of learning as a spiritual discipline: the right knowledge, when harmonised and synergised with the right feelings and the right actions, will produce a love for God that builds others and gives the greatest joy of being “known by [Him]” (1 Cor. 8:3).
#2. EARN the favour of men (Lk. 2:52; cf. v. 39, Jn. 7:15)
In Gospel accounts, many people seemed to come to Jesus especially to be healed. This is not the main reason people sought for and followed Jesus, though. Matthew 4:23 records it clearly: the crowds came to hear Jesus teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. It can be said that Jesus’ knowledge and familiarity of God the Father fuel Him to love and heal the people who looked for Him.
Through this scene of the Lord’s life, we learn that the acts of knowing and loving God rightly will lead us to also love those whom He loves. The verse which Jesus quoted in Matthew 22:39, Leviticus 19:18, underlines the reason God commands us to love others as ourselves: “[He is] the LORD”. What does this mean? or, to be exact, who is this LORD? Even if every book that has been, is, and will be written in the world were devoted to describing Him, it’d not be enough, for the universe and every single quark in it is His (Ps. 24:1), the Holy Trinity who created men and women in His image (Gen. 1:26–27), who saved the whole world from sin by the blood of Christ (1 Jn. 1:17) and welcome those who return to Him (Lk. 15:20).
God wants us to love others in order that we, whom He has redeemed from sin (2 Cor. 5:21), may become like Christ in His love (Eph. 5:1–2). Even more so, we love others like Jesus does so that they may also know and love Him (1 Cor. 9:19–23), in whom are “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). But how can others know Lord Jesus through us if we ourselves don’t know Him personally? This is where we find the importance of the spiritual discipline of learning.
Again, pride and admiration from others are not the aims of our learning. Rather, we learn so that we may reach out to others through our knowledge and share the Gospel of Christ with them. And from my experience, the increase in knowledge must be harmonised with the increase of genuine love and care for those around us (1 Cor. 13:1–2). The leader of my discipleship group in the past often reminded us, People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Knowledge subjected to the love of Christ: this is what I’m trying to practice in my job as an environmental consultant, as I’m leading my discipleship group and facilitating my book reading group, in relating with family members and friends and colleagues, and also through my writings. It’s extremely easy to be immersed in the intricacy of various doctrines, spiritual experiences, and apologetical arguments and forget the ultimate goal of it all: edifying love (1 Cor. 8:1) that drives us to love others as ourselves (Mat. 22:39), imitating Lord Jesus who humbled Himself (Php. 2:1–8) that we may implore those around us “on behalf of Christ” to “be reconciled to God” by Christ (2 Cor. 5:20b).
“Therefore, we are ambassadors of Christ, God making His appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:20a).
To close this series on spiritual discipline, I’d like to remind you that spiritual discipline is, at heart, a “discipline”. To practice it, we need to ask God for His graces so that we may desire and do things that are pleasing to Him (Php. 2:13). In his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Don Whitney reminds us, Those who are not trying to learn will only get spiritual and biblical knowledge by accident or convenience. We must become disciplined, intentional learners if we’re going to become like Jesus.
Without discipline in practising spiritual disciplines, our relationship with God will never become more than mine with Liverpool players: I know about them, but I don’t know them.
Finally, I join the apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:16–21 in praying for all of us who are striving to become more like Jesus Christ by “[training] yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7):
16 that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Lord Jesus be with you in every learning and good work (2 Cor. 9:8), soli Deo Gloria.
Questions for reflection
How have you been viewing knowledge and learning activity this whole time? as a way to know God more or as an excuse to be proud?
- What lessons did you learn from the above explanation on the Great Commandment (Mat. 22:37–40)?
- How will you start practising the spiritual discipline of learning as L + EARN?
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