It’s no secret that I love books. I’m a self-described “unrepentant nerd”, and I enjoy having lots of information available at my fingertips; I own several hundred books, mostly non-fiction. I just like to have them THERE. The vast majority of my disposable income goes to books, and I have a terrible bad habit that I get about a third of the way through a book before something more interesting (or at least appealing) comes along.
A few years back, I picked up an annotated copy of “The Confessions” by St. Augustine. I loved it. Here is this brilliant story of a man who, like the Apostle Paul, had a phenomenal education (a secular education, in the case of Augustine, though he was raised in a Christian home) He describes his life and his struggle to make sense of the universe, of good and evil, and of his own life. It’s a wonderful read, and had a whole philosophical bent that is really accessible and enjoyable. (but I digress).
I ordered a copy of “The Confessions” which was not annotated, because I wished to have a less cursory appreciation of the work, and I felt a kindred spirit in Augustine. It arrived, and I was quite pleased. I added it to a stack of books that I wanted to read before leaving on the trip, knowing that it I wouldn’t have the opportunity to take them all with me. As I settled in on the couch with my stack of books, and carefully planned out how long I could take to read each of them, I felt a twinge in my heart.
“Why do you want to hear what my children say about me without coming to me instead?”
I suddenly felt this intense conviction. It was one of those moments where God allows me to see myself from a different perspective: I love God, and I love knowledge, but somewhere along the line I had forgotten that where Jesus is concerned, He is the knowledge. He is the authority on all things God. We live in such a literate society, and we have so much access to scholars, and thinkers, and writers, and preachers, and theologians, and ministry resources, and, and, and, and….
And I think somewhere along the line I forgot (as I think many in the Church in North America have) that our relationship with Christ is not supposed to be simply an academic one, or an intellectual one, but a personal one. It is wonderful to read and grow our minds, even biblical, but I fear that we lose our focus when we so fully immerse ourselves in study that we can’t see the reason that the study is so important to begin with: Jesus.
Peter, who was locked in prison and sentenced to die (and freed by the power of God), had this to say in a passage on suffering:
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
We are to be so lost in Christ that when we suffer, he is the reason for our hope. While Augustine (seriously, read “Confessions”) may be an excellent writer, Barclay an excellent ethicist, or Tozer a gifted theologian; Mother Teresa an incredible portrait of Christ-likeness in work, or Ravenhill a diligent watchman on the wall, or Lucado a challenging encourager; while ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS EVER SET INK TO PAPER may be ENGAGING ENOUGH TO MAKE ME DROOL OVER THEIR MANUSCRIPTS, there is a single, beautiful, difficult fact that made me set down the books I love and pick up my bible, and it is this:
There is only one Jesus, and if we are to know Him, we need to hear from Him, not about Him. There is no substitute.
