Decoding Discipleship Myths: Knowing Scripture is Enough

A little note about the series: This article is part of a multi-part series regarding myths relating to discipleship and spiritual growth. While each article will be able to stand alone it will be important to read all in the series. Far too many myths exist within the church about what it means to grow spiritually and how a church facilitates that growth. The goal of these articles is to identify those myths and give thought to how to possibly overcome those myths within your organization.

Knowing Scripture is Enough

Understanding the Myth

Okay, the issue here is not that it is anti-discipleship to know Scripture. That is not the case at all. Again, knowing Scripture is not really the myth or the issue. To grow as a believer you will have to spend time in the Bible. The issue here is that only memorizing Scripture will produce growth. Basically, the myth is that simply knowing a set of verses, or more commonly, a single verse that has been plucked out of its context will produce spiritual growth in the individual. I was given a t-shirt that says:

I can do all things through a verse taken out of context.

That is the idea. A verse plucked out of its context, memorized and memorialized in a person’s life can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and misconceptions. How many athletes have thought just because they follow Jesus they will make the game-winning shot, or hit the game-winning run in, because they can do all things through Jesus? Simply knowing a verse, or 100 verses, doesn’t produce growth in the person. It takes more. That is the reason this is really a myth. It is a prevalent one at that. The church has bought into the idea and even celebrated a person’s ability to memorize passages. Even Satan knows passages. Do you know what they are telling us about God?

Studying Scripture

Reading and studying Scripture is a foundational way of growing spiritually. That may seem contradictory to the myth, but it isn’t. The myth comes in where people only read it, memorize a favorite verse or two, and do nothing else really with what they have read. It leaves the Holy Spirit out of the equation. At a base level studying Scripture is not simply reading it in order to get done, or finding a particular verse that seems to fit your worry, or need, of the day. Studying the Bible is about letting the Holy Spirit enlighten you to how it speaks to the principles of God, the promises of God, and the application to your own life within in the community. You don’t study Scripture to be able to recite it later, but to allow it to permeate your life bringing you into a closer walk with God. 

Growing Spiritually through Scripture

A steady decline has taken place in the lives of believers over the years. It could be argued this decline has occurred across the board, not just in the church. Okay, at this point it isn’t really an arguable point. It is reality. What is at issue is that we have replaced doing with knowing. People know plenty of things and the pace of knowledge development is exponentially increasing. But in all that knowing we have stopped doing anything. Our knowledge is not impacting our doing. We have started searching for a list of good and bad behaviors in the bible while ignoring the God who gives that Bible its power and impact. We seek “Do” and “Don’t” rather than love and compassion. Below are a set of basic practices that can be used to discover the God of the Bible rather than just words on a page.

Knowing 

Knowing is the base level of studying Scripture. It is at this level where far too many people stay and not move onto the weightier matters of God’s principles. You read it and remember some of the verses, even memorize some of them, but the word doesn’t get past the first layer of thought for you. It doesn’t penetrate into the ground to spring up and produce anything. At this level you are simply looking for some little nugget of a verse, or part of a verse, that you can put on a t-shirt, a mug, and post on your social feed to make people think you are spiritual. Staying at this level is a shallow spiritual life. You know verses but you really don’t see how those verses speak into your daily life. There is no real understanding of what it is saying.

Understanding 

Understanding is the secondary level. It involves moving to a point of learning what the passage of verses mean in their context. What are the things going on around this passage? What is happening? Where is this in history? What other parts of the Bible does this passage connect to? What do they communicate about God and His principles for living? How do the verses relate to the current environment/context you are in? The intent is to go beyond the surface. It is not to try and create or identify some secret meaning underneath everything. It is seek out what is this passage saying about God and who He is. It begins with an internal acknowledgment that you might be wrong about what it is saying. Then, go find out.

Doing 

At this level the principles of God are moved from your head to your heart. Only the Holy Spirit does this. There is life change, which is really heart change, that has taken place so that you lead your life differently. There is not a particular set of behaviors that relate to this principle but a worldview that puts God at the center. You are moving from a sense of self-centeredness and self-preservation to a position of self-sacrifice. This level is a life-long journey. Here you continue to walk through the spiral of knowing, understanding, and doing as you grow towards the Christlikeness that God calls us to. You are putting into regular practice the principles and things of God. You can’t force heart change by outward behaviors. God produces heart change through devotion to Him by the work of the Holy Spirit. You can’t cheat. You can’t circumvent the process. It takes time. Trust the story of God and walk in Him.

Growing spiritually through Scripture is not a formula. It is not rote memorization. It isn’t a pithy social post with a little nugget of thought in it. It is trust in God’s story day in and day out. Scripture gives us the beautifully complex story of God’s people succeeding and failing again and again at doing just that. A person doesn’t get there by simply knowing verses, but by letting the Holy Spirit plant those truths deep in the heart so they can grow and produce fruit.