A Personal Thought About How to learn Biblical Truths
If you are a Christian you may not see the sense or necessity of asking "How do I, as a Christian, go about learning Biblical truths?" There is a tendency to think that we just pick up our Bibles, listen to a sermon or two, read a commentary; and poof! the perfect understanding, magically pops into our brains, because the Holy Spirit is our instant teacher. This of course is not the way that it really works. Learning Biblical truths, for a believer, is an ongoing, continual process, which even though directed by the Holy Spirit, still requires certain diligent efforts and processes on our part.
As a rule, normally God does not zap His knowledge into our brains, without some acts of cognition and reasoning on our part. Things such as prayer and humble submission to what is being taught are required. This often involves divesting ones thinking of thoughts that do not line up squarely with the truths that are being learned. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the ongoing process. It is not easy to unlearn things that we have believed in the past, which prove to be incomplete or totally false concepts. But unlearning is just as important as learning. Clearing out trash and clutter is part of good housekeeping. And it must be done everyday in our brains. This is part of how to "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus"(Phil. 2: 5). Christ keeps a clean mental house. Every day of our life it should be our privilege to pray: "Lord thank you for showing me this new truth, this ever brightening light. Help me to unlearn those things that I used to believe about it. Let my thoughts conform to your thoughts, and let me sweep out the old trash and clutter, so that I will be more like Christ in my thinking. Thank you O Lord. Thank you so very much for this new illumination in my heart. Amen"
As a rule, normally God does not zap His knowledge into our brains, without some acts of cognition and reasoning on our part. Things such as prayer and humble submission to what is being taught are required. This often involves divesting ones thinking of thoughts that do not line up squarely with the truths that are being learned. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the ongoing process. It is not easy to unlearn things that we have believed in the past, which prove to be incomplete or totally false concepts. But unlearning is just as important as learning. Clearing out trash and clutter is part of good housekeeping. And it must be done everyday in our brains. This is part of how to "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus"(Phil. 2: 5). Christ keeps a clean mental house. Every day of our life it should be our privilege to pray: "Lord thank you for showing me this new truth, this ever brightening light. Help me to unlearn those things that I used to believe about it. Let my thoughts conform to your thoughts, and let me sweep out the old trash and clutter, so that I will be more like Christ in my thinking. Thank you O Lord. Thank you so very much for this new illumination in my heart. Amen"
©2011 E H Jackson
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This article may be reproduced on webites and blogs with a direct link from the article back to this website. it may not be republished in any other form without written permission.
