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Go to the Ant · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  We are into December already. It's crazy to think about as we approach the
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  holiday season in Christmas. In the new year, we're focusing on Bible study
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  habits. Last time last week we looked at how to study the Bible on
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  one topic that was Apja nineteen ninety eight, very practical episode, where do
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  you Pastor John just walked us through how you do a word study on a
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  single term or a topic, very simple, hands on And then coming up
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  later this month, we're going to look at the grammar of the Bible and
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  the importance of that little word. Therefore, therefore, they're about five hundred
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  of those therefor in the New Testament, So what does that term mean for
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  us? What should we see in it? It's another granular, super helpful
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  Bible study principle that we need in our toolbox, and that's coming up December
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  fourteenth. Then we look at why daily Bible reading habits are essential for us
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  in twenty twenty four I guess a motivation that's coming up on December eighteenth,
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  and then return after Christmas to look at a very common hindrance to the discipline
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  of Bible reading. Inevitably throughout the year when my Bible reading seems flat.
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  I read, but my heart is dull? What should I do? What
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  can I do? That's on December twenty eighth, So a big month ahead
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  on Bible reading, all to hopefully equip us and motivate us for success in
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  twenty twenty four. But today we're talking about learning, but how to learn
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  from the material world around us, learning from general revelation as it's sometimes called.
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  Pastor John, you have a new book out titled Foundations for Lifelong Learning
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  Education in Serious Joy, And by my count, this new book contains only
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  the second time you've ever mentioned Proverbs sixty six in a book. Project Go
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  to the ants, Go to the ant, study the ants, Learn from
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  the ants. That text Proverb sixty six was also in your earlier book Think,
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  but in this new book it shows up three times in the intro,
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  chapter one, and chapter five. From one angle, the new book Reads
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  is a wonderful celebration of what God is teaching us through nature. But how
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  does this new book relate to your older book Think? How is it different?
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  And as you wrote this recent book, what did you learn as you
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  put all the pieces together about how the Bible pushes us outside of the Bible
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  to learn what struck you in a new, fresh way. The book Think,
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  which was published in twenty ten, the year after Bethlehem College and Seminary
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  was founded, as a kind of launching vision for the school, is a
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  plea. The book is a plea, especially to Christians, to embrace serious
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  thinking as a means of loving God and loving people. It's a plea to
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  reject either or thinking when it comes to head and heart, thinking and feeling,
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  reason and faith, theology and doxology, mental labor, and the ministry
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  of loving hands. I don't want anyone to choose between the two halves of
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  each of those prayers. So the book is a plea to see thinking as
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  a God ordained means of knowing and loving God. I think when Jesus said
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  in Matthew twenty two thirty seven, you shall love the Lord your God with
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  all your mind, he did not mean that loving is the same as thinking.
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  So simply by thinking right thoughts about God, we're loving God. I
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  don't think that's what he meant. What I think he meant was that thinking,
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  the right use of our minds, is a means to loving. Loving
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  is the fire of admiration and affection and desire in the furnace of the heart,
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  and thinking is how the fuel of knowledge is thrown like good dry wood
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  into that furnace. So we use our minds to grasp the truth of God
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  in Scripture, and that truth about God is like that dry firewood that we
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  throw into the furnace of our hearts and set our hearts to burning with love
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  for God. That's think now. This new book, Foundations for Lifelong Learning
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  grows out of my experience as a pastor who spent a huge amount of my
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  thirty three years trying to use my mind to grasp the God intended meaning of
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  biblical texts. That's what I did mainly, and what I have found in
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  teaching and preaching and in all the mental labor that goes into both of those,
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  is that the very habits of mind that I use when I come to
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  Scripture are the same habits of mind that I use when I deal with any
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  reality in the world. And this book, Foundations of Lifelong Learning, is
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  an effort to shed light on those habits of mind as we use them in
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  reading both of God's books, so to speak, the Word, that's one
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  book, the Bible and the world that's the other book. That way of
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  talking about two books goes back at least to the Belgic Confession fifteen fifty nine,
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  which says we know God by two means. First by the creation,
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  preservation, and government of the universe, which is before our eyes as a
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  most elegant book. Secondly, he makes himself more clearly and fully known to
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  us by his holy and divine word. That's the Belgic Confession fifteen fifty nine.
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  I have spent I suppose, most of my life focusing my mind on
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  the Bible, and then trying to help others see the greatness of the reality
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  that I see. By preaching and teaching and writing. I've tried to let
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  the Bible itself inform how I approach the Bible. And what has emerged over
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  the last fifty years is that there are these six habits of mind or mind
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  and heart which make up my approach to the Bible. Observe carefully and thoroughly
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  what's there in the text. Second, understand accurately what is observed. What
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  does this text mean? Three? Evaluate fairly truly what has been understood.
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  Is it a sweet and precious reality like God's grace? Or is it a
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  horrible, fearful reality like hell. Fourth, feel appropriate emotions in response to
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  the kind of reality I have observed and understood and evaluated love, fear,
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  hope, joy, admiration, revulsion, peace, desire. Fifth, apply
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  all of this in wisdom to the situations and people around me, for their
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  good and for the glory of God. I have not handled the scriptures rightly
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  until I am moved to make them a means of love and worship. Be
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  doers, James said, not just hearers of the Word. And finally,
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  number six, I find ways to express in speech and writing all that I've
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  observed and understood and evaluated and felt and applied so that more and more people
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  can share in what I have seen. Now, that's how I approach the
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  Bible texts in scripture. And what you can see is that at least it
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  became plain to me over the years that these very six habits of mind are
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  the way God wills for us to deal with the world as well as the
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  Word. So whether it's politics or grass seed, are just thinking about grass
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  seed just because I was trying to make my lawn look better recently something about
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  grass seed, or whether it's the coronavirus, or computers or cars or clothing,
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  or you're looking up at clouds or looking, like you said, down
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  at ants in the ground and birds and lily's and sunrises. The realities that
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  we deal with every waking hour and sometimes even in our dreams, the ones
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  that the Bible itself, These realities in the world that the Bible itself tells
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  us to pay attention to, like at the end of job, Oh my
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  goodness, chapter after chapter, look, job, look and humble yourself or
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  some one or romans one. Those realities in the world are to be handled
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  with the same habits of mind and heart that I have used in dealing with
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  scripture all these years. That's what became increasingly clear to me, especially as
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  I tried to articulate what we are trying to do at Bethlehem College and Seminary,
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  which is kind of the origin of this book. That's what this new
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  book draws attention to observe the world, thoroughly, understand the world, accurately,
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  evaluate the world, truly, feel the world appropriately, and then apply
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  all of this and express all of this with wisdom and power for the good
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  of others and for the glory of God. And you asked, Tony,
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  what struck me in a fresh way as I was putting these pieces together.
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  Here's one answer to that question. I realized that the foundation for lifelong learning
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  are also the foundations for lifelong living. They are simply. In fact,
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  I got to the end of the book and that's what I wrote the conclusion
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  about, because it was going to fresh to me. Even I didn't start
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  the book thinking that way. I started the book thinking I'm just going to
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  talk about lifelong learning. They're simply. These six habits of mind are a
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  way of describing the Christian life. It's just what we do as Christians because
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  of who God is and what He made us to be. We observe because
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  that's why God gave us physical senses and spiritual senses. We understand because that's
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  why God gave us minds. We evaluate because God revealed himself as the measure
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  of all worth. We feel because that's why God gave us emotions. We
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  apply and express because God call us to love. So I'm not sure I
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  had ever seen so clearly as I do now that the path of lifelong learning
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  is the path of lifelong living. Yeah, thank you, Pastor John for
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  those six Habits of Mine. Thank you for the new book, Connecting Mind
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  and Heart and lifelong living like you do. This is a gift, appreciate
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  it and thanks for joining us today. If you want to ask Pastor John,
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  type out your question and email it to me at ask Pastor John at
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  desiring good dot org. Next time, we're going to hear from a fifteen
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  year old listener to the podcast who doesn't want to waste his life? How
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  does he make his life count? Can't wait for this one? This is
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  one of those episodes. If you're a teen, or a parent of a
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  teen, or a grandparent of a teen, you don't want to miss this
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  one. I'm your host, Tony Rinky. We'll see you Thursday.