The Source
Any of the great “ologies” in scripture point to a specific area of study in God’s word…soteriology, theology, ecclesiology, etc. Before you can really dig in and determine what God is saying today, you have to recognize that we start out at a disadvantage. We are at least 2000 years removed from any of the events that have happened in the Bible! As you can tell, a few things have changed in our culture and context. The Bible is now primarily read from a book rather than being told in stories. Our culture is growing more and more illiterate of biblical and spiritual truths, similar to the early Gentiles we read about in Paul’s letters of the New Testament. We’ve seen thousands of scholars retell and interpret the work of Jesus and the early apostles over and over again. In fact, if you’ve read any blogs or church leadership books in the last 20 years, you’ve seen drastically changing patterns, programs, priorities, and strategies.
To start any research, you have to start from one common authoritative source, the Bible. If you want to read more about how God speaks to us, you can read about it here. For our study of the church, we are starting with “the source” of authority and every living thing, God.
God is the source of everything
You see, everything finds its origin in God. Creation, life, wisdom, strategy, principle, salvation, direction, faith and truth to name a few. Before God created the earth, nothing existed before God. He was methodical in everything He made and later revealed His greatest creation…us.
Because God is the author and we are His creation with a lot of potential and a lot of faults, we approach God from a level of weakness and inferiority. That is one of the reasons we serve and worship God as well as why we needed a Savior in the first place.
We approach everything from the standpoint of weakness
The Bible goes so far as to say we cannot even comprehend the thoughts and ways of God (Isaiah 55:9). In other words, we are clueless. Our strategies, our rationale, our ability to plan wisely for an unknown future are absolutely futile without first hearing from God. That very idea makes something in each of us gag just a bit, that we have nothing to offer to the conversation. We approach everything from the standpoint of weakness. Oddly enough, it is when we recognize our weakness that God promises to strengthen us the most. (2 Corinthians 12:9) That means that if we approach the study of God, the church or anything else spiritual without going to the source, we will misunderstand, misinterpret, and get it wrong 10 out of 10 times.
God willfully reveals Himself to us
Because we get it wrong 10 out of 10 times, God willfully chose to reveal himself to us in many different ways throughout history. He has spoken through prophets, priests, circumstances, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the Bible to name a few. It’s called the doctrine of revelation, the things God has chosen to reveal to us. Today, I believe God speaks primarily through the Bible and the Holy Spirit. If you believe that the Bible is true and infallible as I do, you will have a high regard for what it contains and you will recognize that it will point to a singular story of God and His work in this world. In other words, it will bear out a consistent message even if it seems otherwise at times.
Why we go to the source
People only see part of a situation or circumstance. I have found that often we only see the parts we really want to see, or the parts that defend the position we’ve already decided is the right one. We are narrow minded at our core, every single one of us. We go to the source because God supersedes our narrow mindedness and shows us a bigger and better picture of what is to come…if we care to go to Him first. I’ve found that God will speak through scripture directly to our culture and our context. However, when we first want to know what other PEOPLE have said on the topic, we are already opening ourselves up for misinterpretation or interpretation in one context that doesn’t play out in all contexts. We find our perceptions colored before we even get to the real prize, what God wants to say. That doesn’t mean mature followers of Jesus who spend hours and hours studying the Bible through prayer can’t shed some light on what God wants to show us. We just can’t go to them first even though it seems sooooo much easier.
How we go to the source
As a young Christian, I often asked the question, do you have to be a scholar to hear from God? Well…yes and no. You can’t know God’s heart if you don’t know God’s word. There is a definite need to spend time becoming familiar with all aspects of the Bible. However, God continues to speak to those who earnestly seek Him through the Holy Spirit even if they are beginning readers of scripture.
For a first step, the best way to hear from the source is casually reading through the Bible, first through the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and then spread out from there. This gives you a broad picture of who God is and what He has said and done in history.
Along with the first step, consistently praying over the text helps to bring it alive and engage the Holy Spirit in the process. I can’t tell you how many times God has demonstrated something profound in simple times of prayer and reading.
Thirdly, much of the truth of scripture is demonstrated when we actually apply the things that we are learning and reading. To know them is futile (James 1:22). To apply them is to introduce the spiritual into the practical world we live in. It’s incredible, fresh, and highly rewarding. As you grow in your maturity and understanding of the Bible you will naturally begin to hunger for more. I’m always curious when someone is willing to die for a biblical principle but doesn’t care enough to read the Bible regularly. It just doesn’t add up.
When we go to the source
Overall, to believe that God has revealed everything in the Bible would mean he is a pretty small God. God shows us what He wants us to see. No more and no less. Along the way, we will learn common principles and traditions as they have been passed down from generation to generation. Those who have studied before us can help us in our own study and growth. When we go to the source first, we don’t just learn the face value stuff, we also begin to discover the heart of God in areas we weren’t necessarily looking. That’s living in the overflow – applying the things we wanted to know and being blessed with the things we didn’t know we wanted to know. Some of these have immediate applications and some we will use later in life as situations arise. It’s one of the ways God prepares us for a future we are oblivious to but He is already working in.
The greatest part of going to the source is that we will experience God beyond principles and precepts, stories and traditions. We will experience the true and living source, or creator. His words will change the course of our lives and our church because I believe He WANTS us to know His heart and will. It all starts with opening the Bible and digging in. God will take it from there.
