A Complete Man
Charles Spurgeon lived in 19th century London. He was a pastor, theologian, and mentor to many young preachers through his church’s college. Spurgeon would spend years mentoring and teaching future pastors of his day. At the behest of his current and former students he submitted 28 of his lectures to a publisher to be turned into a book. In one of those lectures he shared what it means to be a complete man. The simple and profound teaching of that day rings true today and to every day in the future. The world needs complete men. And being a complete man is simply immensely difficult to achieve. Here are the three things that build into a complete man.
Gain knowledge
You may already know this under a different theme, or title. The point is that a complete man is learning. Constantly learning. Each and every day is an opportunity to learn new things. There is no discrimination as to what is learned, but each day is spent in the acquiring of new knowledge. That knowledge is paramount to the next steps of becoming a complete man. How does a man engage in gaining knowledge? Read books. Read articles. Engage in conversation with people. Do not waste your ime on the internet, or on social media. Make intentional effort to be challenged with new thoughts and ideas. Don’t be close-minded. Seek to learn new things each day. Read things that you will likely disagree with. Force yourself to look at things from new and varying perspectives. Knowledge is neutral. It is what and how you respond to it that creates the bias. Don’t be afraid to seek out new things, experiences, or perspectives. Seek to gain knowledge about the world. Be open to new ideas and thinking. Challenge yourself. Be an actual life-long learner. And be indiscriminate about what you are learning. It’s okay. Read things that challenge, or go against, your personal viewpoint. If what you believe is truly grounded in truth than there should be no fear in learning things that might challenge it.
Discern the truth
Discernment appears to be a lost art these days. Some might call it “common sense.” Those same people would also point out that common sense doesn’t seem so common these days. But Jesus shared that part of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the true believer would be to lead that person to the truth. The Spirit guides the believer to what is true and what is false, provided the believer is actually listening to the Spirit. Gaining knowledge is important, but all of that knowledge must be filtered, or strained, in order to identify what is actually true for the believer. Truth is a funky thing in that for it to be true it must be true for everyone at all times. Far less is really true than what many modern day churches would have you believe. But the Holy Spirit is a guide to discern what is actually true. The Spirit is a filter for the believer to help identify real truth. You must continually seek to gain knowledge, and then that knowledge must be filtered by the Spirit to identify what is truth.
Store the truth in wisdom
It has been stated that, “knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is knowing that it doesn’t go in a fruit salad.” Once truth is identified it must be stored in wisdom. Think of wisdom as an all-encompassing category of life filtering. You might call it your worldview. It is the story by which you filter all of your experiences, thoughts, and interactions. Wisdom is the lens by which you view your world. Knowledge is of little use to you if it does not get filtered into wisdom. You can know all sorts of things about the Bible, Jesus, and the truth. But are you doing anything with what is known? Has it made any sort of difference in your life? Truth isn’t really truth if nothing changes about how you live. To be complete as a man, you must put the truth into active practice in our life. Anything less is failure.
Each and every man should strive to be complete. Spurgeon taught that a complete man is one that has a grounded foundation out of which he lives, acts, and does in the world. Do you have a solid foundation built on the truth of God? Building your life on the truth of God will be a deep and stable foundation for your life. Challenges and storms might come against it but it will hold because it is solidly build on Christ.