students of jesus

It’s so much easier to study about about Jesus than to be a student of Jesus. We face the constant temptation to fill our heads with the details of his life and ministry. Pastors and college professors emphasize the need to memorize Bible verses or learn Greek and Hebrew. Publishers produce massive volumes of systematic theology. Popular Christian books suggest Biblical keys to success for our finances, healing, or any other human need. But Jesus is not a system, he is a person.

Perhaps we should give ourselves first to filling our hearts and lives with his presence. An omniscient God is not impressed with the size of our intellect, but he is impressed with the size of our heart. How can a finite human mind grasp an infinite God? St. Augustine, one of the greatest intellectuals in history, lamented that the “mansion of his heart” was too small and asked God to graciously enlarge his heart, not his mind. The Holy Spirit, who breathed out every word of the scripture, is not impressed with how many verses we have committed to memory, but he is impressed with how many verses have found their way into our everyday lives. Jesus didn't care much for religious knowledge, but he was astonished by the faith of simple people like widows and gentile soldiers.

Even though the Scripture encourages us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,” we are constantly tempted to pursue human understanding regarding the words of Jesus when we should pursue his living presence. Trust is about relationship, understanding is about intellect. In Jesus, God chose to become a man. The infinite stooped down and clothed himself in humanity. In his earthly ministry Jesus did not reveal all the secrets of knowledge and learning in human history. He chose instead to reveal how it was possible to enter into relationship with the creator. Jesus chose to reveal the Kingdom of God. By his actions, Jesus taught relationship is more important than understanding. We know this intuitively. We tend to forget it when it comes to our faith.

Faith does not require us to throw our brains into the trash. It does, however, require us to order our lives around what is most important, and relationship comes first. Jesus opened the way back to relationship with the creator. The good news of the gospel is that the Father has gone after the very children who have rejected him. He refuses to leave us alone. He will pay any price--even the life of son--in order to win us back again. That's a committed relationship in action.

Some of us have busied ourselves with developing human descriptions of God’s action. We discuss words like justification or sanctification. We try to present the legal reasons Christians can expect to go to heaven when they die. When Jesus paid the price for reconciliation, he wasn’t thinking about theology: he demonstrated God’s irrepressible love. Jesus described eternal life in terms of relationship with God: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)

In Jesus are "hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 2:3) We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, mind, and strength, so we can confidently apply our intellect in the love of God. We should also remember that the countless of number of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation who will worship him in heaven will certainly include the unlearned and the illiterate--and they may have a thing or two to teach us about a loving relationship with Jesus.

The challenge for us as Students of Jesus, then, is to know him, and not settle for knowing about him.

When I took Systematic Theology in graduate school Devlin Lucent was the best student in the class by far. Devlin knew all the answers. He never lost his cool. He was ridiculously good-looking. Sometimes he asked the professor questions so clever the professor would start to answer, stop, and then say, “That’s a very interesting question, Devlin. Class, what do you think?”

One day I had to know why Devlin even bothered with this class. I caught up with him on the quad.

“Hey, why do you ask such impossible questions?”

“Just playing devil’s advocate,” he said. “Dr. Hallow is on the right track, but he hasn’t taken it far enough.”

“Sounds like maybe you should teach.”

“I will,” said Devlin. “But the world only respects diplomas and degrees, so here I am.”

The whole semester went on like this. Devlin knew the correct answers in every category: sin, Trinity, covenant, you-name-it: this guy was as smart as they came.

And talented, too. When he led worship people raved about the music. He had no trouble finding dates: it seemed like a third of the girls in the school were lined up for him. (I noticed, however, that a few of the girls he went out with ended up dropping out of school.)

One night I had a dream:

Devlin was at a nearby bistro enjoying a glass of wine and the admiration of a table full of other students. He saw me through the music and the haze of those who pretend to smoke cigarettes.

“Grimsley!” He gestured. “Just the man! Get over here.”

I had to admit it was something of a thrill to be publicly recognized by the coolest guy in seminary. I pulled over a chair and wedged into the crowd.

“We were just discussing our take-over of the school,” said Lucent. I laughed, but the rest of them turned their attention back to Devlin. “No, really: those stodgy fools have no business running the place. Even when they’re correct they’re hopelessly lost in applying the answers. They’re driving students away and holding the rest of us back. Are you in?”

“This seems rather sudden, eh?” I tried to ask.

“Nothing sudden about that lame seminary. They’ve been screwing people up for decades.” No one interrupted Devlin. They focused on him with devotion usually reserved for rock stars or saints. He loved it. He didn’t need my buy-in: “I can see you’re holding back. No matter--I may still let you attend after I’m in charge.”

The next morning it was Devlin who caught up with me on the frosty quad.

“Good morning, Grims. Sleep well last night?”

“Well enough,” I said. In the morning light he didn’t look so menacing.

“I like to give people a little time to adjust to progressive ideas,” he said. “You should think about my offer.”

My heart stopped at the same time as my feet. “Your offer?”

“Surely you didn’t think that because it was a dream I wasn’t serious?”

“Wait--how did you--was I really talking to you, then? In my dream?”

“Don’t concern yourself with details, Grimsley. Just because it was a dream doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. What? Confused? You should’ve studied the Old Testament harder. It’s not so strange.”

What was strange was the winterlight behind him. His head was rimmed with light but I looked through the shadow to his face. His good looks vanished. The features were the same but they had distorted into pride and lust and anger. What had been appealing became grotesque. He saw what I had seen, and it somehow amused him.

“What now? You’re thinking how a good student like me would want to rebel? Grow up, man: my theology is perfect,” and here he leaned toward me until I smelled the breath of death itself. “It’s not enough. I won’t stop until I’m in charge.”

In that moment my alarm sounded. I was utterly confused. I had already awakened, or so I thought. Last night’s dream was the dream--or was it a dream within a dream? I was truly afraid, but the student in me still got the point. I fumbled for the notebook next to my Bible. My shaking hand managed to scrawl the awful truth:

The devil's theology is just fine. The problem is he wants his own way.