This afternoon I experienced what will probably be the first of many moments of frustration in my new journey of schooling.
I have acquired my textbooks and today I received my DVD for my first official seminary class: Survey of New Testament. Eager to begin, I actually began reading my textbooks a couple of days ago when they arrived. Over. Achiever. I’ve enjoyed very much what I’ve read so far.
But this afternoon, there was about 30 minutes of real panic. Real panic. Because in the midst of trying to understand something that the author had written about a text that the author presumed I should already know, (or I presumed the the author presumed that I should already know) I came face to face with my ignorance. I don’t know. There is so much I don’t know about Scripture. There is so much I don’t know about God. To use the words of a friend, “I am a complete novice.” For a few brief moments, I wanted to throw the book I was reading. I wanted to say “I am an idiot, what am I thinking? I can’t really go to seminary.”
So when I read Matt Perman’s brief and to the point post tonight, I found encouragement. I have been accused at times of being an overachiever. But I want to know everything. There isn’t anything that I don’t want to know exhaustively. But there is so much that I don’t know. What a comfort, what an encouragement tonight to know that while I may not know everything exhaustively, I can know things accurately. And there are some things that I do know accurately. Oh, I fight irrationality. I fight wrong thinking, probably more than the average person. At least, since becoming different, since becoming a believer, it sure seems that I fight more than the average person. But there are some things that I know accurately about God.
Acts 18:25: “[Apollos] spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus.”
Acts 18:26: “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”