SLAMMED AGAIN


As I walked to the Greenline shuttle this morning, I was pondering what we would do next in College Sunday School. Christmas is coming up, so I've been thinking about the incarnation--seems appropriate--and John 17:3 came to mind:

'This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.'

As I began thinking about how to communicate this deep profundity to the students, God dropped a thought in my head, "What does this passage teach me?" My initial thought was the standard the Christian-life-is-all-about-Jesus response. Then God slammed me with another verse: John 5:39-40.

'You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.'

We all have distractions. One of my worst is the intellectualization. It is all too easy to think that careful study equals feasting on the Word, when it's really snacking. It is all to easy to think that exegesis equals understanding, that the pursuit of understanding is same as the pursuit of Jesus. It really is all about Jesus, but much too often (possibly most often), I have no idea what that really means. So here I am, sitting in the woodshed once again.


JOHN 17
JOHN 5