Knowing God Through His Word
August 2, 2021 • by Amy Hornbuckle
There was an un-transformative belief that saturated the halls of my college; a lostness that hummed at the bottom of empty bottles. I lived in that hollow reality for 23 years, and it was only by God’s grace that I finally saw the light. When I think about the year God called me to himself, my heart is burdened for the women who believe a gospel contrary to the life-changing one I know. My heart is burdened because in realizing just how desperately fallen I was, I saw the beauty of God’s grace. Now I plead for their souls to taste repentance and grace the way I have.
The Necessity of Biblical Literacy
There’s a particularly pivotal moment that brought me to the concept of biblical literacy. About six months after graduation a college friend had announced her baptism. I reached out in enthusiasm and asked to grab dinner. It wasn’t long into her “testimony” that a text interrupted our conversation and she politely extended the invitation to a nearby bar. I knew immediately this wouldn’t be a casual get together. The bar was in the heart of downtown where the party doesn’t end. Because of the gospel, it was this life I’d walked away from in college; but this woman uttered the name of Jesus and remained chained to that way of life. Her words still hit a deep part of my heart, “I’m not ready to give it up.”
Here’s why this story matters: this woman knew Scripture. But there’s a big difference between knowing Bible verses and knowing God. When our belief is built on half-truths and shallow theology, it responds to a distant God––in fact, it often makes us a god. In a single sentence, this woman revealed that the gospel she heard was not Christ’s. For his gospel––the one true gospel––tells us he came to seek and save the lost. If we believe that, then we admit our sinfulness and need for a savior. If we repent, we believe in sin and therefore in the reality of a God-honoring way to live our life (that can only be done through the work of grace).
“If we think we’re losing something by giving our life to Christ then we have not understood what he died for.”
If we think we’re losing something by giving our life to Christ then we have not understood what he died for (Matt. 16:25). Jesus is the life. The living water. Our daily bread. By relinquishing the world, we live.
The Emptiness of Biblical Illiteracy
Like this woman, many of my peers claimed Christ, yet did not know him truly. Many were involved in Christian organizations and participated in Bible studies, but did not read and trust his Word. Thus revealing a pandemic sweeping the church––biblical illiteracy. Today I can look back on this reality and see how many Bibles (including my own) sat untouched in closets, unopened in laps, or bookmarked on feel-good passages. They (and I) didn’t know their Bibles, which means they (and I) didn’t know God relationally.
For myself, this hollow reality manifested itself as a pursuit of fulfillment and approval. Without knowing the Word, I slung around the phrase “my God is a good God,” and therefore so long as I was “better” than my neighbor I was righteous. That was my theology, and when I found myself crying in the fetal position because of who I allowed myself to be on weekends this God was nowhere to be found. My theology didn’t give me life, it suffocated me.
Romans 1:21-22 says, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
We are all theologians. We all have a belief about God, and those beliefs affect everything about the way we think and the way we live. When these beliefs are built by the world, secular opinions, and our experiences we find ourselves chasing freedom, love, meaning, and life over and over.
Every Sunday in college I found myself desperate for something more than getting drunk with my friends, and yet I returned to the same bar the following weekend. It was all I knew. I chased this identity and it was like drinking salt water. The God I knew felt like a distant creator. The God I now know is loving, merciful, holy, sovereign, just, creator, sustainer, omniscient, and triune. When our Bibles stay unread, we miss this.
Jen Wilkin says it well, “the heart cannot love what the mind does not know.” The Lord softens our hearts to receive grace, but the means by which he has chosen to reveal himself, transform us, and guide us is through his written Word. He tells us it is living and active (Heb. 4:12) and that it is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
What can we expect then, from someone who claims Christ but doesn’t know the Word? We can expect an incomplete understanding of who he is and what he has done, and therefore, an unchanged life.
The Beauty of Biblical Literacy
When we learn to read Scripture rightly, we are renewed in our minds, so we are then able to set them on God (Rom. 12:2). And we do this not only because we must lest we stray (Ps. 119:9), but also out of love for the Father who has lavished his mercy upon us. For how can we experience salvation and not want to truly know and obey the One who saved us?
God is not some distant higher being who passively watches his creation. He is the creator of heaven and earth who created out of an overflow of who he is, loving his creation to the point of sending his one and only Son to pay the penalty of our sin.
“When we neglect the inerrant and authoritative Word of God we allow ourselves to find comfort in a God defined by our own terms.”
When we neglect the inerrant and authoritative Word of God we allow ourselves to find comfort in a God defined by our own terms––a God who is okay with dishonoring his holiness. This disturbing fact is the foundation of the sentence “I’m not ready to give it up.” It reveals humanity's wandering nature, prone to desire things of this world over the goodness and love of God. It says, I care about my current state more than praising and honoring the one Whom I will be with eternally. See the seemingly small difference? But it’s not small––it’s blatantly false and deeply corrupting. It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. A true belief in God is a humble one, an on-the-knees kind of posture. Our lives are his.
Biblical literacy matters because “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
Notice how Jesus says “every” word. Not some. If the Bible is God’s chosen medium of speaking to his people, then the entire Bible is important, authoritative, and transformative. It’s far from random stories bound together. The Bible is in its entirety a narrative - the gospel narrative to be precise. It tells of God’s redemptive plan throughout history.
The Bible demands to be handled rightly. This may sound intimidating, but it is important because the Word is divine. At the same time, we know that the Lord wrote it for his people to read, meditate on, and obey, which means we can trust and lean on the Spirit to guide us as we do so. However, this doesn’t negate our responsibility to handle the Bible in its terms as literature, history, and theology. The Lord made us intellectual beings capable of developing Bible study tools and processes that help us interpret his Word.
A Shield from Shallow Theology
In using these tools––understanding what the Bible is and therefore how to read it––we are shielding ourselves from shallow theology. Our sentences will no longer be “I’m not ready to give it up,” but rather “how do I overcome it?” And the answer to that is simply, and beautifully, Jesus.
It took me a while to learn this. Like my peers, I walked around blind for a long time. But in God’s mercy he softened my heart and he used very specific people in my life to show me the way.
It is through the Bible that we come to know our Savior. And we will spend our earthly lives knowing him in this way until one day we will stand face to face with him, the eternal word made flesh.
Amy Hornbuckle is passionate about coming alongside brothers and sisters in Christ as they seek to know the Lord through Bible study. From opportunities like being a part of the church staff and receiving her Masters of Theology at Midwestern, Amy developed a biblical literacy tool called The Bible Study Workbook designed to aid in becoming independent students of the Word. Outside of Bible study you can find her doing life with her husband and son, hiking, reading, and writing.
MORE FROM JOURNEYWOMEN
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen articles are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select writers each week, articles shared on the Journeywomen website do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the authors or any other resources mentioned.
