Matthew Costner

The older I get the more I believe that most Christians seem to go to Church right before they get saved, and right after they get saved but very quickly, it seems like they get to the point where they believe they have learned all they need to know. And like the kids in the movie Dazed and Confused who just graduated high school, their theme song seems to be Alice Cooper’s song, “school’s out for summer, school’s out for ever.” Just like these kids in the movie who believe that their studying days are over, I believe some Christians feel like they’ve graduated and no longer need to study the Scriptures.

No more do they study the Scriptures like they should – if anything they study sports to get ready for things like the NCAA tournament bracket pick (I’m currently beating my wife this season, just sayin’). No more does a fire burn within their heart to passionately seek Christ – if anything they seek things of the world to make themselves feel good for all the junk in their life. No more are they excited about things of church – if anything they are excited about the football game or race that is coming on right after church. No more do they seek the Scriptures to grow in wisdom – if anything they watch Oprah and Dr. Phil to find life’s answers.

And then Christians seem to wonder why the World is the way it is. We wonder why we continue to mess up and life continues to get harder and harder. We wonder why in the heat of battle we don’t feel God’s presence. We wonder why we are finding it harder and harder to be joyful. You know I have found that if Christ is not the center of our lives, if His word is not the starting and ending point to where we find our source of strength, encouragement, and hope, then we will NEVER find ourselves where we want to be.

As I have studied the spiritual discipline of “study” I have found a lot about why many of us aren’t living the lives we so want to live – we aren’t studying! The purpose of the spiritual disciplines is to bring about a total transformation in our lives. They aim at replacing old destructive habits of thought with new life-giving thoughts.

The apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 12:2 that we are transformed by the renewal of the mind. To be blunt with you the mind is only renewed by applying it to the things that will transform it. So what does that mean, it means we have to study the things that can transform us. No wonder Paul writes in Philippians 4:8, “Finally brethren, what is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is pure, whatever is holy, whatever is gracious, if there is excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, THINK about these things.” The Discipline of Study is the way we think about those things.

We can learn a lot here about Bible Study from the Bereans (Acts 17:11). God called these people “noble” which means “excellent.” In other words, God gave them a star, a smiley face, an A+ for their Bible Study. They dedicated their lives to studying the Scripture, and God called them excellent! How can we get to the point where God calls us excellent? Or better, yet what was the key item that made the Bereans more excellent than the Thessalonians? STUDY. Please don’t think for one minute that the Thessalonians were horrible people. Paul writes to them and prays for them saying ”we (Timothy and he) thank God without ceasing, because, when you (Thessalonians) received the word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works in you that believe” (1 Thess. 2:13). The difference is that the Bereans received the word of God, but they also went home and studied it.

In the Old Testament days, the Scripture instructed the Israelites to write the Laws and Scriptures on gates and doorposts and bind them to their wrist so they would constantly see them (Deuteronomy 11:18). The purpose of that was to get the mind to look repeatedly and regularly toward certain modes of thought about God and human relationships. However, in the New Testament it replaces the laws and Scriptures written on doorposts to laws written on the heart and leads us to Jesus.

One thing that is clear to me, at least from my own study and the Scripture is that our thoughts that are formed will conform to the things being studied. What we study therefore determines the kind of habits we form, which is why Paul urges us to focus on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious.

So my question is, what are you studying? I like Alice Cooper’s song, but I can honestly say this, School ain’t out. It won’t ever be.