While camping with my uncle and aunt, we spent our days out exploring the area and searching for birds. Two of us pushed to find another bird–writing down what we saw and moving on to find something else. Two of us patiently watched and listened–trying to learn something new about the birds we’ve just seen.
Birding requires both of those actions . . . identifying the birds we see and watching birds to see what new we can learn about them beyond their identities.
I checked with photographer Craig Taylor about birds he has struggled to identify. He gave me two examples of what he calls UFOs. The feature photo is of a warbler, but Craig’s still not sure which one. The other photo is of a sandpiper in Iowa. He’s not sure about what kind of sandpiper it is, but he keeps studying photos trying to identify it accurately.
That’s a pretty good picture of how believers should approach the Bible. It’s one thing to know how to use the Bible, and even to memorize some of it. It’s another thing to dig deep–to search God’s Word for His truth and His revelation. It’s easy to be satisfied with the first action without doing the work required of the second.
If birders were satisfied with being able to identify the birds but knew nothing about them, how unsatisfying birding would become.
During the Great Awakening in America, England’s great evangelist Charles Spurgeon came to the United States to preach a series of revivals. He traveled from town to town, accompanied by a young American seminary student (or so I remember the story). Every night, Spurgeon preached a new sermon on John 3:16. After many nights of hearing the same text expounded from the pulpit, the young student asked Spurgeon when he was going to move on to another passage of scripture for his text. Spurgeon responded, “When I have wrung out God’s truth completely from that text, I’ll move on.”
I read that story in a book titled Lamplight and Son in my doctoral studies. It resonated with me as a Christian, as a student of the Bible, and as a teacher of the Bible. Here’s why:
If the Bible was easily understood, scholars would have no need to spend their lives studying, translating, and interpreting Scripture.
If the Bible was easily understood, adults would have no need to study Scripture for long.
If the Bible was easily understood, we’d have no need for preachers to open our hearts to the powerful call of the Scripture.
If students of the Bible are satisfied with just knowing the basics of Scripture without digging in for the depth of God’s revelation, how rootless that knowledge would become and how little they would truly know about God.
Just a reminder to dig deep . . . whether about birds or scripture or anything else that interests you. The deeper we dig, we more we gain.
