Prayer, Worship, and Love: Good Reasons to Read the Bible

So pretty much everyone who's reading this probably knows that I am in love (read: obsessed) with the Bible. That's a good thing to love and be obsessed with, right? I mean, the Bible is literally the most precious physical treasure on earth. It's more important than that new guitar, or house, or car, or even job. It directs us how to view those things, how to live our lives, how to love people and family, how to work. Not that we should neglect those things to read the Bible, because if we neglect family and people and work, we're going against the very Bible we're reading.

But I find that reading the Bible, shockingly enough, helps you understand things better. It helps you to know God better and love Him even more because you know what He's truly done, what He is doing, and what He plans to do.

My prayer life is now better than ever. I admit, I don't pray as often as I should. And that's something I'm working on (or is being worked on in me). But when I do pray, my prayers become more than just Oh Lord, I want this thing, help me get this thing. They become fountains of praise and worship and theology, not just cold academic knowledge, but love and praise and worship from the heart and mind and soul and strength. I credit that to spiritual growth that comes from reading and knowing the Word of God. And even as I pray, I find I think more about God and love Him all the more for it. Not only that, but I love the true God, because I know about the true, Triune God and what He has truly done for us. I know that I am a wretched sinner and that, for whatever reason, He has led me to repentance and salvation for no reason other than He wanted to. I didn't earn that. He gave it to me. And that reflects in my prayers to Him. I know to approach Him not as a guy who just gives gifts (though He does), or as a stern, cruel being. I approach Him as a Lord who is great and awesome and powerful and just, and as a Father who cares and loves and shows mercy greater than anyone else. He has the power to save me and help me and love me. He rules heaven and will bring the Kingdom to earth. He teaches, corrects, and trains in righteousness. He delivers me from evil. He forgives. He gives me everything I truly need to live the life He desires. And all that comes from reading the Bible and learning from men who teach the Bible rightly.

And that, my friends, is another reason to read the Bible. It improves our prayers and worship and love for our Triune, perfect God. And what can be greater than that?

My Best Worship Experience

About two weeks ago, I attended a little church in Lacey. Sarrah was out of town that weekend, so I was alone. I wasn't sure what to expect from them, but the website seemed promising. That church turned out to be great. I loved the very Bible-centered preaching, the people were nice, and the worship was the best worship experience I've had ever since moving to Thurston County, quite possibly in my entire life. And that's what I want to talk about: worship, specifically the music aspect of it.

In our time here, Sarrah and I have been to several churches, each with varying styles of worship music. The most common worship music involved a piano/keyboard, an acoustic guitar, a drum kit, a bass guitar, and more than one singer. These churches often sang songs that every Christian knows and aren't new but are more contemporary than hymns (which isn't difficult), such as "Here I Am to Worship." Mars Hill Olympia went all out with loud rock, ranging from blues to experimental to alternative. And don't even get me started on the thousands of dollars of technology that went into their setup. We also went to one church that had a piano, a hymnal, one lead singer, and a very traditional, formal atmosphere. And there's nothing wrong with those approaches.

At this particular church, they mostly had a piano, a lead singer, and a hymnal. I say mostly because at one point the family that leads the music there all got up and played a couple songs with guitar, mandolin, harmonica, bass and melodica as well. That probably sounds pretty boring to most Christians my age (or a little older). But it honestly felt, to me at least, more joyful and worshipful than any of the other churches I've been to here. And I think I know two reasons why.

The Congregation

I could hear the congregation (something that is tragically lacking in some churches), and they sounded joyful in their worship. We were all singing out of a hymnal, which isn't very worshipful to some other churches (charismatics mostly), but I could just tell the love they had for their Savior and Lord. I can't really explain it, but it was there. But that's not nearly as important as the fact that...

I Could Actually Think About What I Was Singing

I frequently fall into the trap of just listening to the music and singing along without really thinking about the song's meaning. Maybe that's just a flaw in me that needs to be worked on. But, for whatever reason, I could really think about the meaning of the words that we sang in this church. I could focus not on the music, but on the God we were worshiping, what He did, does, and Who He is. Maybe it's because it didn't seem like the church was overly focused on lots of music, I don't know. Heck, the piano player pretty much just played the music in the hymnals, nothing fancy. But we focused on the words, the meaning of the words, and God Himself. And to me, that was the best thing ever.

I think this is something that can get lost in worship music a lot. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with striving for musical excellence and interesting melodies and harmonies in a church, and my experience as a guitarist/singer in a church was something I wouldn't trade for anything. But I think we frequently focus on getting emotions and volume up (which again, aren't bad things) without thinking about the mind aspect of worship. I'm not directing this to a specific church or anything. I just want people, no matter what church they go to, to think about it, that's all.

Here come the Bible references. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" (Luke 10:27; see Matt. 22:37 and Mark 12:30). Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." That applies to worship! We worship God because we love Him! He is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent! We should love and worship Him not just with our hearts, souls, and strength, but also with our minds.

And that, my friends, is what led to what was quite possibly the best worship experience of my life.

Why Theology Isn't Purely Academic

I know a lot of people who would consider themselves theologians. I also know people who see theology as a pointless, complicated discipline that people engage in for no reason other than to argue and puff themselves up. I also know people somewhere in between that spectrum. This post is for all those people (so, everyone who reads this). What I want to do is talk about what theology actually is. I've done this before, but I want to say more.

I think the view that theology is pointlessly academic and just a topic that people argue about is, unfortunately, unwillingly promoted by a lot of people, myself probably included. Equally unfortunate is that it's probably true for a lot of people. Humans in general want to pump themselves up and be better than everyone else. It doesn't help that a lot of contemporary pastors and churches invent weird terminology that no one has heard of before. If you've ever heard Mark Driscoll talk about "sins of omission and sins of comission..." I've looked this up. Comission is not a word. A lot of so-called theological terms aren't even actual words. This mucks up the waters for people who just want to understand the Bible and God. And "theology" is not keeping up with the latest Gospel Coalition and Resurgence blog posts. That's not even close.

A lot of us (I consider myself at least an amateur, if mediocre, theologian) have a much different purpose in mind when we "do" theology (whatever the heck that means). Theology is simply the study of God. When we (or at least I) talk about theology, what I'm talking about is God and the Bible. I'm talking about putting in the effort to understand God, His purposes, the way He does things, His attributes, etc. That sounds academic, and it is to a certain degree.

But when you really grasp a theological concept or idea, it's actually very practical. Think about this: Jesus is the Lord. He is our Lord, God, King, and Ruler in general. And this is in an absolute sense; God's Kingdom is just that: a Kingdom, not a constitutional republic. So we have to obey Him, right? He has the final say in everything we say and do, in every aspect of our lives. We are literally His slaves. Slaves have no rights and no purpose other than to do the will of their master.

Think about that for a moment.

Everything you do needs to be what God would want you to do. Of course, we are also part of His family, and that's why the slavery metaphor isn't similar to Civil War-era slavery. God is loving and caring of His people. He doesn't abuse us. He loves us. But He also is our Lord and Master.

Do you realize how much that would change the way you think and act when you truly grasp that concept? It's a process obviously, since we aren't perfect, and I think anyone who grasps that will have to work for the rest of their life to become more and more subservient to God, but still.

It's reasons like that that theology and Bible study are actually useful. The Bible says that Scripture is the Word of God, the will of God and teaches, trains, builds up, and corrects. That's why I "do" theology. I want to be taught, trained, built up, and corrected to do the will of my Master. How else can I know His will without actually reading the Bible to see what it is? That's the reason any legitimate theologian engages in theology at all; they want to grow spiritually and do God's will. And those arguments? Some are the results of pride, certainly, but some of them are because the arguers want to defend the integrity and truth of Scripture, the most precious truth there is.

Last night I prayed with my wife. The prayer was, for the most part, purely thanks and worship. I even talked about a passage of Scripture I really love, Isaiah 6, because it's such a beautiful picture of salvation. I credit even being able to pray about those things to delving into the Bible and learning about them. I felt truly grateful to God for who He is and what He's done. That's practical. That's spiritual. And that's the purpose of theology.

A Pathetic View of God

I hear various things on Christian music these days. When I say that, I not only mean that I hear about different genres of Christian music or types of songs (such as hymns versus newer songs), although I do. I also mean I hear opinions about contemporary Christian music, such as Spirit 105.3.

I know what you're thinking now. You think I'm going to just blast Spirit 105.3 and say it sucks. Fortunately, that's not what I'm going to do at all. Unfortunately, I do have a lot of concerns about that radio station (and Christianity in general) that I want to talk about, and you, my faithful reader(s), are the perfect victims to hear me out.

Okay, so, Spirit 105.3. Anyone who listens to it will constantly hear about how good they are (particularly because they like to flaunt the listener praise every ten minutes or so). They get several calls a day about how they lift people's days and make work bearable, etc., etc. So obviously some people have a high opinion of it. Then there's the other spectrum of people, the folks who think it's too wishy-washy and lovey-dovey. They may or may not give their reasoning for this, choosing instead to just rant about it.

Predictably, I fall closer to the latter of these two camps. But unlike some people, I'll actually give my reasons for what I think, at least from my personal experiences listening to it.

When I listen to it, I hear a lot of what I described earlier: the phone calls about how they and God make people feel better and whatnot. Well, that's great. I won't deny that's what they do. I won't deny that God wants us to be joyful in all circumstances. Read Romans 8:28 if you want proof of that. But so often I hear about people wanting to "have a personal relationship with Jesus" and "be close to God." They don't tend to describe what that means. I don't usually hear talk of salvation, grace, redemption, brokenness because of their sin. The fact is that Satan has a personal relationship with Jesus. It just happens to be one of animosity and hatred. Everyone on earth has a personal relationship with Jesus; it's only a matter of whether it's they love or hate Him. There's no in-between. There's no indifference, not Biblically. It's for or against.

I also think that Spirit 105.3, the songs they play in particular, focus far too much on one attribute of God: love. Now, I'm not trying to minimize that God is loving. God is love. God is the most loving being of all. And this fact is mentioned a great many times on Spirit 105.3, albeit with a certain vagueness at times. And that's another problem. How did God love you? Love isn't just a happy feeling; it's an action. The Bible says the way He loves us is that He gave His Son to die for our sins. Some songs mention this, and that's great. But others tend to just say He loves and don't mention what that means either.

Love is not all there is to God. One thing I hear frequently said, but likely not understood, about God is that He is holy. In fact, holiness is the only thing about God that is mentioned in the Bible in a superlative sense: "Holy, holy holy" (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8). Saying a word multiple times in a row was the way in those days that they emphasized words. Saying a word three times was extreme. So God is truly holy, and the Bible emphasizes that greatly.

But what do we mean when we say God is holy? We frequently mean He is good. That's true, and certainly a part of it. But it's such a complex topic that R.C. Sproul wrote an entire book on the subject.

Then there's the feel-goodiness of it all. "Oh, life is sad, but God is happy and yay." (That's a slight exaggeration). You know, I absolutely believe God comforts us in our time of need and brings us through trials. But once again, that's not all there is to it.

Let's go to Isaiah 6. This is the passage I mentioned earlier, where the Bible says God is "holy holy holy." Isaiah, encountering the living God Himself in all His holiness, is not overcome with joy about the fact that he is face-to-face with the holy God. No, he's overcome with grief and tears because he realizes that God is absolutely perfect, he is not, God will judge him by that standard, and Isaiah has absolutely no hope in that judgment. This is the ultimate feeling of "I'm not good enough." God then shows mercy and purifies him in a beautiful picture of salvation, not because Isaiah deserved it, but because God wanted to and had a purpose for it. Isaiah was absolutely broken because of his sin and realization that he couldn't measure up to God. God saved him anyway.

I don't hear that much on the radio. I usually hear about people being broken about life circumstances. Certainly that happens, and certainly God is there for His children in those times, and I don't want to minimize that fact. But where is the brokenness from our own sin? Where is the fact that we don't and can't measure up to God? We frequently say that God saved us. But from what? Why did He have to save you? Do we ever think about that? Do we ever realize that God is far more than a happiness machine, waiting to give out blessings to people who are sad? And do we ever realize that God is far more than just the guy who saved us and takes care of us, He is also our King and Lord Who will someday bring His Kingdom to earth?

At this point, I've deviated from only talking about Spirit 105.3. I think they promote a weak, kind of pathetic, sappy view of God, but they aren't the only ones. So many churches talk about how they want to "help you with your problems" and "make you feel better." There's a church here in Olympia that wants to "spread the love of Jesus," but has absolutely no mention as to what that really means. No mention of salvation, holiness, anything at all. It's just disturbing to me how far from the Bible we've gone.

I won't doubt that people probably get saved because of what Spirit 105.3 does. It's great to have at least one radio station not filled with sex and drugs. But how much more could they do if they promoted the full truth of God to the world? Don't people need to realize they are sinful and can't measure up before they can truly come to God in earnest repentance and be saved?