Consider Order in the Christian Life | Clip from How to Read as a Christian

In light of those previous two principles, let me give a fourth. The principle of order in the

Christian life. And let me, I kind of put this together, so I'm not sure that this is very clear, but let me try to make it clear.

Moving from the objective to the practical. In other words, something that we put into practice.

From truths that we're learning to those truths moving down into the heart and out through every area of the life.

I think of three categories. There is reading that focuses on the objective truths, and we mentioned this already, truths which really form the foundation and the fuel of all

Christian living. And then there is another category, experiential writing.

So these are authors that have taken those objective truths and they are presenting them to us in a way that we would consider more devotional.

So, you know, you might say in category number one is a book more kind of strictly doctrinal, maybe a systematic theology or a book on one aspect of doctrine.

And there are many great truths there and they may be presented in a warm way, but that's a little different than a devotional book on the same topic where the author is helping you take these truths and to bring them down into the soul so that the heart is captivated.

In a sense, this category of writing, this devotional category, the author has done a lot of the work for you.

You could just start with objective truths and you do the hard work and you meditate and chew on these things and you labor before the

Lord in prayer until they are digested and hold the heart captive, you know, fill the mind and move the will, but the devotional writer does some of that work for you.

And then a third category, what we might call more practical, that is moving from the knowledge and in the head, the enjoyment of the heart of any particular biblical truth to practical areas that need to be changed because of this truth.

One way that I see this in Scripture would be the book of Ephesians. We tend to think doctrine leads to right practice.

So Ephesians 1, 2, and 3, good doctrine. Ephesians 4, 5, and 6, right practice.

But if we stop there, I think we would miss that essential middle element.

So Paul gives good doctrine in chapter 1, but the chapter ends with a prayer that they might enter into that experiential knowledge of these things.

Chapter 2 and 3, another great portion of doctrine. And then at the end of chapter 3, another prayer that God might enable them to really taste, to be filled with the experience of these truths and the love of God in these truths.

So great doctrine, real, warm, experiential appreciation, and then actual changes in the life.

And that takes us back to that root and fruit distinction. So that if anybody should think we're saying, hey, we want the root, forget about the fruit.

We've said already, no, the fruit follows. And that's the wonder of that sequence.

That's the beauty of that sequence that you've just described. That when you understand the truth, and when the truth, sometimes we talk about, did you grasp the truth?

Well, actually, you want to get to the point where the truth grasps you. And then that principle again, do not be merely hearers, but doers of the word.

That the great doctrinal realities, the great fundaments of our faith, that those things should move us deeply and spur us to action.

And if they neither move us to devotion inwardly, nor move us to action outwardly, then we haven't, if you like, joined up the dots.

So what we're saying is, look at the fruit that grows on the root, and that root always bears those kinds of fruits.

So to be able to see that kind of progress, and as you said, to begin to discern those different kinds of material, and then to try and weave them together, because you'd really want, at some point, somebody to say, hey,

I've been reading this wonderful book on the doctrine of God. Now, it's not just a mental exercise, it's stirred my soul deeply, and it's making a difference to the way

I worship on the Lord's Day, so that we're beginning to plug those things together for ourselves.

Yeah, two writers that speak about this. One, John Flavel, in his little book,

Keeping the Heart, I remember Flavel saying, and he just uses this simple picture, that there's a great distance between the mind and the heart when we come to grabbing truth.

You can grab the truth in the mind fairly easily, but to get it to the heart, sometimes it feels there's a mile between them.

But, Flavel said, if it gets in the mind and is moved into the soul, into the heart, then it's a very short distance from heart to action.

It's just the way that we're wired, you know. We do what we delight in. Yeah, and that's where meditation is key, isn't it,

John? That simply to have our eyes pass over the pages, and there are some kinds of reading where we're just saying, look,

I'm just going through this, I'm getting from the beginning to the end, I just want to pick up a general sense, but the kind of reading we're talking about is meditative reading.

And I think it was Watson who said that meditation is to reading what digestion is to eating.

We want this stuff to get into the system and to truly nourish our souls.

And when it does, that's when it produces a real change in our hearts. And it makes us better husbands and better fathers, better church men and women, better wives, better sons and daughters.

It alters the entire perspective we have and the way that we engage with God and with one another in the world that he's made.

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