Stop Hoarding Scripture: Start Living It

How to shift from consuming to practicing your faith.

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The Challenge To The Status Quo

The world is very…BIG and I’m pretty sure I’m half Hobbit – just give me my cozy home, my books, and my garden and I’m content. Keeping my nose buried in a book and hunkering down in my home to avoid the messiness of community isn’t what God has called me (or any believer) to do. We’re to live in community and use our Spiritual Gifts to build up the body of Christ.

I came to faith as a young adult and didn’t really have anyone I could ask when I had questions about God or Scripture. Which was hard, but looking back it was a blessing. I applied my academic skillset to researching the Bible. I did what was instinctive to me: I stuck my head in a book and devoured as much info as I could get my hands on.

In recent seasons though, there’s a small voice that continues to prod me to think bigger. To take the Parable of the Talents seriously and see this knowledge as an investment God had made in me. What did I do with that small treasure He entrusted to me? I’d buried it.

We Need Deep Roots

Faith that’s a mile wide and an inch deep is of little value when times get tough and life gets really hard. For those seasons where we’re grieving, persecuted, overlooked, overwhelmed, or abused – the deep roots of faith keep us anchored firmly in the One who sustains life.

My continuing search for knowledge came in very difficult seasons. The spiritual growth was steady and strong because I had that knowledge and faith as an anchor in the storm. We all need deep roots, but a fruit tree that never sets fruit is of little use to anyone.

Studying Scripture taught me to be humble and remain teachable. The more I learned the more I realized I didn’t know anything. I learned how to find answers and to hold many of those answers with loose hands, which scholars I trusted and how to verify what they said, and map out the various positions on difficult topics (only to often decide I didn’t have a home in any one camp).

I’ve come to learn my spiritual gifts of knowledge and faith were a big part of why this journey was successful. I can literally lose hours studying, watching/reading sermons, taking notes, reading papers, researching, and watching archaeology tours on Youtube and not grow weary or tired.

Searching for knowledge, learning humility, and allowing myself to ask questions and speak up – these are all good things. There have been tremendous blessings in this journey of collecting knowledge.

A fruit tree won’t set fruit for several years. There has to be enough growth, enough roots, and the right climate for fruiting – but that season for giving fruit needs to happen!

Me! On Valencia Island In Ireland (photo credit Julia Rowe)

Are You Root-Heavy But Fruit-Starved?

Here’s the problem: information does not translate to transformation. The knowledge of Scripture changed me, informed my priorities, directed my path. I was setting down roots, but the season to be fruitful has come.

Knowledge of Scripture can be life-giving, but if that knowledge doesn’t shape your compassion, grow the kingdom, fill you with hope and imagination and zeal -- compel you to action, what use is it to God?

Jesus cursed the fig tree that had no fruit to answer his hunger (Mark 11).

This is where I found myself. I’d dive into a multi-month or year-long study and all that knowledge would stay locked away in my head, in my notebooks, or on a harddrive. I’d make an attempt to share it online, but my mental health would sidetrack me for a week or a month and I’d lose momentum: a tree with no fruit.

The Parable of the Talents kept coming to mind, over and over, year after year. What was I doing to grow the investment God had made in me, in the gifts that equipped me to do such indepth studies? The honest answer was not much.

I’ve attended churches in the past that put up a lot of barriers for women, particularly women who wanted to teach, but God didn’t let me off the hook. Keep trying, he said. I started a blog, but I lost my Facebook account and so had no audience to share those thoughts with so I got discouraged. My mental health worsened for a season and I lost momentum.

Keep trying. Take the next step.

The bumbles loved my dahlias! (photo credit: me)

Faithful, Ordinary Obedience

I’ve come to learn that having the gift of faith means that I pretty fearlessly and promptly take the next step once I discern a direction from God. I’m told that not everyone is able to discern God’s direction so clearly, or to step out in obedience with complete conviction -- it isn’t that I don’t experience trepidation. I just have this solid unshakeable conviction that this is what I need to do. So get to doing it!

So the above road blocks were incredibly frustrating. It felt like I was being set up to fail. But failing is learning – or at least it should be. Keep trying – Ok. Here I am, Lord.

I was visiting a local church and was given a vision of my arranging flowers in front of the pulpit on a Sunday morning (I have a big garden of flowers). I wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea of joining that community for a variety of reasons, but that call seemed pretty unmistakable to me.

I had to take that head-knowledge and trust that this community would be different. Obedience is quiet fruit. Four months later, ministry opportunities that have remained firmly shut for many years are opening up. There’s community forming around me, embracing me, and I’d long stopped hoping for that. There’s vulnerability and accountability and compassion for others in unexpected places. Quiet fruit.

Here I Am, Lord

This was the reply Samuel gave after he discerned that it was the Lord’s voice he was hearing. It’s such a simple response, but laden with trust.

• Meditate Every Day – even just for ten minutes. Learn to recognize God’s voice speaking to you – whatever that looks like. It may be an audible voice, a picture in your head, it may come through the voices of others, through Scripture reading, or prayer. Keep practicing until you recognize God’s voice when you hear it.

I recommend “Celebration Of Discipline” by Richard Foster and “Invitation To A Journey” by Robert Mulholland to learn more about that.

• Learn your spiritual giftings. Understanding what motivates and empowers the ministry work you’re drawn to helps you direct your efforts and recognize the short-falls where we need others around us for support. I recommend Jon Thompson’s book “Convergence” for more info on that (there’s two different Youtube video series the book is based on. Search Jon Thompson, spiritual gifts, and sanctus church on youtube.)

  
  

• Say yes! We over-complicate this step sometimes. Just say yes to God. Step into whatever you’re being asked to do. Just take that first step and God will meet you there.

You don’t have to move to a hostile nation across the world as a first step. Maybe it just looks like helping a neighbour visibly struggling to cut the grass, seeing someone who is sad or struggling and making time to sit with them, just listening or fixing a dishwasher, joining a team at church or going to that first study group session. Maybe it’s staying right where you are when you want to leave.

Yes, God has asked me to take big leaps of faith. I’ve never once regretted those leaps, though I have at times doubted in His timing. More commonly though, obedience and fruit is a whole lot of small ordinary choices.

When you know the voice of The Shepherd, move closer. Say, here I am, Lord.

Journal With Friends For Accountability! (image credit: Canva AI + Wix AI)

Journal Prompts

·       What’s one Scripture I return to often — but haven’t actually obeyed? What’s stopping you from taking that first step of obedience – what would that obedience look like? Decide what the first next step would be and do it!

·       When was the last time God’s Word disrupted my routine or changed my actions? What was the outcome of that change – and what specifically changed (priorities, actions, compassion, plans)? How can I obey God’s Word today and make a positive change to grow the investment God has made in me?

·       Which do I crave more: inspiration or transformation? What does that say about my spiritual priorities or giftings? Faith without works is dead. Identify one area that you could focus on today to lead to transformation in some way.