Today, we're learning about learning, looking at learning as a crucial part to the Christian
life, lifelong learning, specifically as we're talking about today.
The discipline is essential for local churches as well, so much so.
I'm reminded of VAPJ 1804, Pastor John, where you encourage pastors to build a lifelong
learning habit into their churches so that as God's people,
spurs out into the world after that Sunday gathering, when they go out into all their
various professions and fields of influence, they can learn how to bring biblical truth
to bear in the world at school, at work, without expecting the pastor to be the expert
to answer all the ethical challenges that they will uniquely face in the world.
And so pastors are equipers, getting their people ready to make wise and discerning
decisions in their lives.
And to do this well, it requires a congregation to learn how to learn on their own.
For the next few weeks, we are going to focus on this discipline of lifelong learning,
and we focus here because, well, it's an important theme.
And we focus here because it's the theme of your brand new book titled Foundations for
Lifelong Learning Education in Serious Joy.
In this new book, as to be expected, Pastor John, you employ hundreds of Bible texts
to make your points over 500 citations throughout this little book.
But of the most frequently cited texts in this new book that I see include two texts that
stand out, Matthew 1313 and Psalm 348, texts that also factor prominently in your book
reading the Bible supernaturally.
So that leads me to ask this question, like in your mind, how do these two books and
these two different themes work together?
What are the similarities and what are the differences between talking about Bible study
on one hand in reading the Bible supernaturally?
And the purpose of education more broadly, which is the theme of Foundations for Lifelong
Learning.
How does the wise study of scripture set the stage for us to be wise Christian students
of all of life?
In your new book, you write a statement that really stood out to me, you said, quote,
if we never observe the world through books, especially the book, we will be very limited
in what we can know, in quote, expand on that.
Let me see if I can take all those threads, a lot of different threads and weave them
into some kind of coherent fabric of an answer.
So let's start with quoting those two passages.
I mean, I found this really helpful the way you posed the question.
It was really helpful me to think on how the books relate and how those texts relate
to the two books.
So let's start by quoting those two passages and relate them to the to the two books.
Matthew 1313 says, Jesus says, this is why I speak to them in parables because seeing
they do not see, seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
And I'm pretty sure that the reason this text is a common question for our APJ listeners
is because Jesus says he's actually aiming to conceal things by his parables from people
who are resistant to truth.
A couple of verses later, he says, this people's heart has grown dull.
And with their ears, they can barely hear and their eyes have, they have closed, less
they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears.
But then Jesus has to his disciples, but blessed are your eyes for they see and your
ears for they hear.
So the point is that there are two kinds of seeing, seeing they do not see, seeing is
one kind of seeing, they do not see, that's another kind of seeing.
Now Psalm 348, the other text you mentioned, gives the key to the difference between a
seeing that sees and a seeing that does not see, it says, oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good, which I take to mean that there is a seeing, which is also a tasting of the
goodness of God and that tasting of the goodness of God is the other kind of seeing.
So some people read the story of the gospel of Christ, he dies for us, he rises, triumphant,
he reigns, and they see these facts, they see them, they see them.
But they taste no goodness at all, these facts don't taste good and delightful and pleasing
and satisfying, they don't taste anything pleasant, their spiritual taste buds are dead.
The only kind of seeing they have is natural seeing, seeing with the eyes of the head,
the mind, nothing supernatural, nothing spiritual, nothing from the Holy Spirit.
But someone else reads the story of the gospel and that person tastes the sweetness of it,
the goodness of it, they taste and see and this is the second seeing.
All calls it seeing with the eyes of the heart, Ephesians 1, 18, God has worked a miracle.
He has made the taste buds of the soul alive, it's not nonsense to say taste and see.
I mean, suppose I tell you this dessert is really rich and you say, well, take your word
for it.
And I say, no, no, no, taste it and you taste it and you say, oh, I see now that's not nonsense,
right? You say that's that's what happens when we hear the gospel and God makes our spiritual
taste buds alive.
We taste and say, oh, I see, this is wonderful.
So now here's the connection between those two verses and the two books that you mentioned.
The new book is called Foundations for Lifelong Learning, subtitled Education and Serious
Joy and the older book Reading the Bible Supernaturally.
There are two main differences between the books.
The new book Foundations for Lifelong Learning is built entirely and explicitly around six
habits of mind and heart that form the foundations of lifelong learning or education.
But these habits are only assumed and implicit in the earlier book, reading the Bible supernaturally.
That's one difference.
So assumed in the earlier book made explicit, built around them in the second book.
The other difference is that the newer book applies these six habits of mind and heart,
not just to the Bible, but to both of God's books, the Bible and the world.
So reading the Bible supernaturally is about how to read the Bible and Foundations for
Lifelong Learning is about how to read the Bible and how to read the world.
So it's built around the question, what habits of mind and heart are necessary for lifelong
learning from the world, learning from the world as well as from the Bible.
The six habits of mind and heart that form the foundation of lifelong learning are observation,
understanding, evaluation, feeling, application, and expression.
There's the chapter on each of those and how they are at least to my taste buds, a delicious
challenge for a lifetime of learning from the world and from the world.
This is what we try to do at Bethlehem College in Seminary, build these six habits of
mind and heart into our students so they are catapulted into a lifetime of fruitful learning.
That's what I hope is happening on every APJ as well.
Now the reason those two texts, Matthew 13, 13, and Psalm 348 are relevant to these two
books is that the problem of seeing but not seeing is a problem not only for what we see
in the Bible but also what we see in the world.
In other words, not only do people look at the gospel and fail to see the beauty of its reality,
but people also look at the birds and the lilies and the ants digging in the ground and fail
to see the beauty of the reality that God has designed for them to see and what he means
to communicate.
Some people will say that if we would just study our Bible's more and more carefully,
we wouldn't have to study the world.
Now not to put it too strongly, that's crazy.
Not only because the Bible assumes on every page, I mean virtually every page the Bible
assumes that we have looked at the world and learned from it so that we know what the
Bible is talking about when it refers to vineyards.
Wine, weddings, lions, bears, horses, dogs, pigs, grasshoppers, constellations, businesses,
wages, banks, fountains, rivers, fig trees, olive trees, thorns, wind, bread, armies,
swords, shields, sheep, shepherds, cattle, camels, fire, green wood, dry wood, hay, stubble
jewels, gold, silver, law courts, judges, and advocates for starters.
Right?
I mean, the Bible assumes we've got our eyes open and are looking carefully at the world
and learning what things are and how they work and at society that we have a great
store of knowledge of things of the world when we come to the pages of Scripture.
And not only that, not only does the Bible assume that we have paid close attention
to the world, that we live in, it commands us to go back to the world and learn.
Go to the ant.
You sluggard, sluggard reading the Bible, go to the ant and consider her ways and be wise,
learn from her diligence, look at the birds of the air and learn how your father will
take care of you, consider the lilies of the field and learn how your father will
clothe you.
And the relevance of those texts, Matthew 13 and Psalm 34, is that millions of people
seeing do not see when they look at the world, that they see birds and lilies and ants
and sunrises and stars, bright blasts of God's glory everywhere and they don't see it.
They don't see God, they don't see His glory and what He's revealing.
So the good effects of Bible seeing and world seeing go both directions.
If you see the world accurately, you will bring a fund of knowledge to the Bible that
will enable you to know many things, many of the kinds of things it's talking about.
But even more importantly, and you picked up on this Tony in the last part of your question,
even more importantly, if in reading the Bible, God gives us eyes to see the glory of Christ
to taste and see that He's good, then when we turn to the world and look with these
new eyes, the birds and the lilies and the ants and the sunrises and the stars, they all
have a new message, they have a new glory, they show us something of God.
So that's what I want for myself, that's what I want for our students at Bethlehem College
and Seminary, that's what I want for everyone who reads this book, that's what I want every
time you and I talk on this podcast for our listeners, when we see the Word and when we
see the world to really see, to taste and see that the Lord is good, the Lord is glorious.
Yeah, amen, truly understanding the world in what it says of God is essential for comprehending
the Bible better and vice versa, all leading to the delight of learning.
There's an essential feeling and essential joyfulness that we aim at in all of our learning.
I think Pastor John, you're sort of getting at that, you're pushing in that direction
towards the end of this episode and I want to pick up on that theme next time.
Thank you, Pastor John, thank you for joining us today.
If you have a question for Pastor John, ask him, type out your question as briefly as possible
and email it to me at askbastardjohnatdesiringgod.org.
I'm your host, Tony Ranki, we'll see you back here on Monday, learning for joy.
That's the theme next.
See you then.