Are You a Student of the Word or a Serious Christian?

A strange question, you might think.  But is it really?  Let's think about this for a moment.  It is very possible that you are only interested in what the Bible means so that you could score theological points over an opponent, and not to become more and more Christlike.  Did you realise that?  You might be a Bible junky, just going to it to get your religious kicks.  Some even use the Bible as a tranquiliser!  In order to get over to sleep, they read their Bible before going to sleep!

But you cannot ask me to believe that you are a serious Christian of that's your motivation, can you?  If you are only interested in religious ideas, where is it leading you? 

Dr A W Tozer wrote, referring to certain verses, "To one who is a student merely, these verses might be interesting, but to a serious man intent upon gaining eternal life they might well prove more than a little disturbing."  To be a mere student of the Word, studying it is often a pleasant experience.  But to the man who wants to meet with the living God, it can be deeply disturbing.  When a man meets with God, he often knows what he wants to say.  When God meets with him, there is silence.  In the presence of His Majesty, we are utterly speechless.  What can we say!  In the presence of shining brightness, what can defiled sinners say!  Nothing.  When confronted with the Shikinah Glory, we melt into insignificance.  When God is all in all, man is nothing.

The serious student of the Bible is an altogether different person from the mere student.  God meets with him in the Word.  God speaks to him, and God's holy closeness purges him of sin and iniquity.  The Blood of the Saviour is effective in removing the stain of sin. And man is speechless.  But Christ is everything.  In Him is Life and knowing Him is eternal life.  Knowing Him involves knowing ourselves, and that can be very upsetting and distressing.  In a very real sense, we will not come to know Christ until we come to know ourselves. 

Perhaps we do not know Christ because we do not know our own hearts!  And we do not know our own hearts because we are mere students of the Bible.  We have head knowledge but no heart knowledge of the Scriptures.

What a challenge!