Thinking biblically or thinking Christianly

The Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. – Jesus (John chapter 5).

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this [Jesus] meant the Spirit, who those who believed in him were to receive – Jesus (John 7).

I was listening to a Christian educator speak with pride about the “biblically oriented” educational experience that his institution offers. I could tell that this educational leader has a genuine belief and commitment to the Scriptures as being foundational for life and discipleship. However, as one who also loves the Bible, I do wonder when I hear a Christian pastor or leader calling us to think biblically or to form a “Biblical worldview” whether this is really what Jesus calls us to.

Read and listen to what Jesus tells the Biblical thinkers of his day.  “You have neither heard God’s voice, nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent.”  Though they study the Bible, they don’t hear what God is saying to them. They don’t recognize God’s form – even if he is standing in front of them in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And God’s word does not “dwell” (abide, remain) in them.  They may read it but like the man looking in the mirror and going away without washing, brushing his teeth, or combing his hair, it does no good for his soul (James 1:22-25). Jesus called those who had been trained to “think biblically” to repentance because they didn’t believe in the one God had sent (See also John 6:29)!  They refused to come to him to “have life.” 

It is not enough to study the Scriptures or to be “biblical” in our thinking and actions.  Such a course can result in our becoming the opposite of a Christian.  (Witness the Pharisees who were plotting to kill Jesus.)   A person is not a Christian simply because he or she can quote the Scriptures.  A Christian is a friend and learner of Jesus who hears God’s voice, sees God’s “form” in the person of God’s son, and has the Spirit’s “living water” flowing from them.  He or she has eternal life, the very life of Jesus, and is learning to live it out in ever increasing measure to all around them day by day.

Consider Saul of Tarsus before he became Paul the apostle.  If anyone was a “Biblical thinker” it was Saul. He later described himself as totally committed to the law, and “faultless” as far as obeying it.  But this commitment he describes as “putting confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3).  After becoming a Christian, Paul boasted significantly, not in the Bible, but in “Christ Jesus.”  In Jesus Christ, Saul the Bible believing persecutor of the church became Paul the apostle in whom Jesus was very much alive and operating to draw people to himself.

Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit so that we might not just think biblically but rather think and act Christianly.  Bible people may look and sound like walking Bibles. Christian people, filled with his Holy Spirit, power and love, remind people of Jesus.

“Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus” (John 12:12).