Guy: Amazing, isn’t it, that baby Christians in Ecuador are teaching Western believers about kingdom living! God has a real sense of humor, sending mission teams from North America under the guise of “helping those poor South Americans” and they go back home with lives radically transformed.

Shawn: Now you’ve got me thinking! What does it mean to love God with our mind? Does that require enrolling in a seminary and pursuing a PhD in biblical studies? Is that the ultimate expression of the Great Commandment? I don’t think so; otherwise, 99.9% of the body of Christ would have no hopes of fulfilling it. I’m thinking about a young man who struggled to get through high school, but has recently found his niche working on diesel engines to the glory of God. What does it mean for him to love the Lord with all his mind?

Tom: Sorry I’ve messed with your head, brother; so now you’re returning the favor. When you say “professional Christian class,” I assume you’re referring to pastors, missionaries, and the like. Is that what you mean?

when I first started reading your blog, it encouraged be because it made me feel more connected to other Christians out there. I was encouraged to know that there were “established” Christians who felt similar to me, but were also trying to live according to the “fundamental” precepts of the Bible. More recently though, I have to confess that your posts have started making me feel more disconnected than ever. I think perhaps the reason is that you magnify the cultural gap between me and the vast majority of the “professional” Christian class. Not necessarily between me and you of course, but between me and those you seem to be reconciling as of late.

As “miscreants” like Kierkergaard, Loyola, Merton, and more recently Joseph Tson have pointed out, the Christian life is a spiritual battle that involves a lifestyle of personal obedience and discipline. Those in the professional Christian class who dare to engage this sort of Christian lifestyle seem relegated to paying homage to those who reject them– kinda like Paul in Acts 23:1-5. I am reminded of Luke 11:42-54… those in power who mess up many of the big points of our faith then lord their power and influence over “lower” folks who mess up finer points of our religion.

I hope that God reveals the escape path to me before I am too far embedded in “Christian” culture to know that I even need one…

The great commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength.

That pretty much sums it up.

One of the sayings amongst our group of house church network believers is “It is not how much of the Bible you know, its how much of the Bible you are putting into practice.”

I know plenty of new believers who know very little Scripture, but what they know, they are living.

In our church planting trainings we often ask which is better to know 100 truths from God’s Word but only living 10 of them; or knowing ten truths, but living 8 of them?

The reason “southern hemisphere” Christianity is thriving more than in the the more developed Western Christian countries is that the people here aren’t hung up on knowledge as much as they are concerned about putting into practice those things that they do understand. I have shared with fellow missionaries that I think our people here have more to offer in regards to spiritual truth and living, than most of those that keep coming down to help us.

I agree with Shawn. Nothing wrong with ordinary Christians studying God’s Word, trying to understand its message, and learning how to put it into practice. But Shane Claiborne grew up in Christian environment (East Tennessee), with a strong emphasis on discipleship and learning, but he honestly did not feel that he had ever met “a real Christian” who lived a sacrificial life for the sake of others.

So he’s not promoting ignorance, but rather the engagement of head and heart and hands. Most of us, especially those of us in the Western world, know far more than we live, yet we continue to fill our brains with more and more knowledge: all the while, comparatively speaking, ignoring the homeless, the poor, the naked, the hungry, and the stranger.

Kierkegaard’s rebuke of Christian scholarship may be a bit over the top, but I think he’s making the same point, perhaps using hyperbole (not sure) to do so.

Some ‘good-hearted folk’ who just wanted to ‘live’ the scripture without taking to time to critically reflect upon the text, wound up making the Bible a witness for slavery, protests at military funerals, and a myriad of other nasty things.

Yes, we are called to live our faith, but we are also called to seek, knock, search, and find. I’m almost positive that somewhere amidst all of that journey there exists a need to actually study.