The Biblical Articles: Some Hints for Growing -- Tried and Tested

How does one "grow in grace"? How does one become more "holy"? There are no spectacular answers, no "seven rules for success," no simple formulas for "being good," regardless of what "popular" books on religion may tell you. But there are certain things that have emerged out of the experience of the "people of God" which sooner or later should ring a bell for you. Here are a few of them.

1. It is the experience of Christians that as you live with the Bible, God does "step forth" from time to time, and meet you in personal encounter. Perhaps that language is too spectacular at this stage of the game. Perhaps it should just be said that when Christians, perplexed about doing the will of God, live close to their Bibles, they find that God's will becomes clarified. This does not mean flipping through the pages looking for a magic proof text to tell you what to say in that dreadful interview next Tuesday. It means simply that the more you expose yourself to the way God acts and does things in the Bible, the more real God becomes, and the more chance there is for him to make his way into your heart. It is a fact -- not just a pious hope-that the longer you live with the Bible the more possibility there is that the God of the Bible can become real in your life. This involves good, hard study, as you try to find out what a particular passage means. But just study will not be enough. You must always go on to ask the further question, "What does this passage say to me, right here and now?"

2. It is the experience of Christians that as you pray you are not merely talking to yourself, but that through prayer there can be a deepening of the relationship between yourself and God. Since God is truly interested in establishing personal relationship with you, prayer is not something "spooky." It follows naturally that prayer is a fruitful means for establishing this relationship more fully. This is true of the great men of the Bible who have been close to God. Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the psalmists-for none of these was God just an "idea" about which they had heard. He was the living God with whom they were able to enter into personal relationship. And "personal relationship" is just another way of describing what is suggested by the word "prayer." The preeminent example in the Bible is Jesus himself. He rises early in the morning to pray. He prays at mealtime, in the Garden of Gethsemane, upon the cross. He is at all times in the constant relationship with God that is the heart of true living. And no life can be full if this element is lacking.

3. It is the experience of Christians that faith and conviction grow and deepen as they are tested, as you "go out on a limb" for something you believe in. The promise is that when you take a stand in the name of your faith, you find that you are not alone, but that God is with you, reaching out to hold you up and give you courage sufficient for the occasion. This does not mean that life becomes a bed of roses, but that, whatever comes, there are resources available for coping with the situation.

4. Finally, it is the experience of Christians that to be part of a community of worship is to grow in grace. The Christian life is a particularly rocky road for the individual, and the path is made smoother by the knowledge that there are others walking it too. You would not think of trying to scale the Matterhorn by yourself. You try such a task as a member of a group. So it is in the Christian conquest. To share in the experience of corporate worship -- to confess together our sins, to hear together the words of pardon, to praise God together in song, to listen together to the reading and expounding of the Word of God -- to share these experiences is to have the lives of all who participate enriched.

Particularly is this true in the service of the Lord's Supper, the high point of the life of the worshiping community. All these experiences indicate that the Christian life is not a life of isolation but a life of community and sharing. We have never fully answered the question "What is man?" until we have recognized this fact. Man in community -- as a member of the worshiping fellowship -- is the only complete picture of man that we can sketch. This is why our understanding of man will not be complete until we have taken another chapter to discuss this community, the Church, in which man finds his fulfillment.