I am often asked questions about a variety of topics: my interpretation of certain texts, the reasons behind some of our church’s methodological decisions, whether or not I play basketball…

While the last of those three examples truly is the question I get asked most in my life (usually asked right after the “How tall ARE you?” question), I am going to leave that one unanswered for now and deal with some other, more important questions I have been asked. The plan is to post a question each week, followed by my attempt at an answer a day or two later. I thought it would be good to post the question first so that you could think about how you would answer it first. Then, as you read my answer, you can compare notes. Hopefully, this will allow all of us to think through some important issues for our lives of faith .

I would also like to encourage any of you to submit questions on this blog. Maybe it is a question you have about a specific verse that you read in your quiet time that day or maybe it is a nagging question that has been bumping around in your mind for some time. No question is off limits. I cannot promise that my answers will satisfy you, but I can at least take a stab at it. You can submit questions either by commenting on any “I’m Glad You Asked” post or by sending me an email (eric@livingproofbc.org).

So keep an eye out for the first question in this series. And just to get one out of the way…I am 6 ft 6 in tall, and yes, I do play basketball occasionally, although not very well.

Yesterday, during our time in the Word, I said, “when you have the opportunity to read His word, ask the Living God to take the scales from your eyes, unclog your ears, break away that calcification on your heart and allow you to see him, hear him, and love him. Tell him, O God, you are living and active and I need you today. Then know that as you read you are interacting with the living God of this universe.”

This morning, I read the blog post below by John Piper. I hope that you might be encouraged in your Bible reading and your discipline in the life-long endeavor of growing in your knowledge of the Living God.

You can go to the original post on the Desiring God website here.

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Don’t rest on past reading. Read your Bible more and more every year. Read it whether you feel like reading it or not. And pray without ceasing that the joy return and pleasures increase.

Three reasons this is not legalism:

1. You are confessing your lack of desire as sin, and pleading as a helpless child for the desire you long to have. Legalists don’t cry like that. They strut.
2. You are reading out of desperation for the effects of this heavenly medicine. Bible-reading is not a cure for a bad conscience; it’s chemo for your cancer. Legalists feel better because the box is checked. Saints feel better when their blindness lifts, and they see Jesus in the word. Let’s get real. We are desperately sick with worldliness, and only the Holy Spirit, by the word of God, can cure this terminal disease.
3. It is not legalism because only justified people can see the preciousness and power of the Word of God. Legalists trudge with their Bibles on the path toward justification. Saints sit down in the shade of the cross and plead for the blood-bought pleasures.

So lets give heed to Mr. Ryle and never grow weary of the slow, steady, growth that comes from the daily, disciplined, increasing, love affair with reading the Bible.

Do not think you are getting no good from the Bible, merely because you do not see that good day by day. The greatest effects are by no means those which make the most noise, and are most easily observed. The greatest effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being produced.

Think of the influence of the moon upon the earth, and of the air upon the human lungs. Remember how silently the dew falls, and how imperceptibly the grass grows. There may be far more doing than you think in your soul by your Bible-reading. (J. C. Ryle, Practical Religion, 136)

I read something the other day that jabbed me square in the nose. You know those punches that don’t even need to be very hard at all in order to draw blood and make your eyes water (that is the tough-guy way of saying, ‘crying’). It was just a few sentences in a short paragraph, but it left me feeling bloodied and, well, watery. Here it is…

“Apathy…is the inability to be shocked into action by the steady-state lostness and suffering of the world. It is the emptiness that comes from thinking of godliness as the avoidance of doing bad things instead of the aggressive pursuit of doing good things. If that were God’s intention for godliness of his people, why would Paul say, ‘All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (2 Tim. 3:12)? People who stay at home and watch clean videos don’t get persecuted. Godliness must mean something more public, more aggressively good (Piper, John. 2011. Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway. Pg 101.).”

After I dabbed my nose and my eyes I began to think about these words. What is my personal definition for “living a godly life in Christ Jesus”? What is yours? What is it for our church?

I think of this especially in this month of January. In this first month of the year we recognize two significant dates that give us opportunity for public, aggressive goodness as individuals and as a church.

Monday, January 16, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On this day we celebrate the life of a man who gave his life for the goodness of racial equality and harmony. As much as we would like to think otherwise, racial injustice, societal inequalities, and personal prejudices are still alive and well in our country and, to our disgrace, in the church. We have an opportunity to stand as followers of Jesus to both battle for, and exemplify racial equality and harmony which comes from a right view of the gospel.

Secondly, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday lands on January 22^nd this year. On this day we take time to intentionally affirm the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. Since 1973, the year of the infamous Roe vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court, over 50 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. (Source: Guttmacher Institute, 2011, August). Countless other lives have been lost through the use of oral contraceptives. Once again, the prophetic voice of the church has the opportunity to call out loudly and clearly in defense of the defenseless unborn in our country.

We will hear from God’s word on these issues this month. I am praying that we might respond obediently with a public, aggressive goodness that is rooted in the gospel and that makes much of our Lord Jesus…regardless of the cost.