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GOD'S
WAY AND GOD'S THOUGHTS
Dr. Daniel Botkin
"He made known His ways unto Moses..."
(Psalm 103:7) "How weighty also are Thy thoughts unto me,
O God!" (Psalm 139:17)
Teaching English to hundreds of foreign students has taught
me some important lessons about God's ways and God's thoughts.
I taught English as a foreign language for seven years. My pupils
were young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Jews and Gentiles,
immigrants, tourists, and college students. A typical class sometimes
consisted of pupils from as many as a dozen different countries
and cultures. The students' differences did not matter in the
classroom, though. What mattered was the one thing that united
all the students: a desire to learn the English language.
Anyone who has ever learned a foreign language well enough
to actually use it knows that it requires time, determination,
and intense mental concentration during the study of the target
language. Some foreign students come to America with the mistaken
notion that they will learn English by osmosis. They believe that
being in an English-speaking environment will automatically guarantee
success. Students with this attitude put very little effort into
their language learning. In class they mouth the words without
thinking of the meaning. When the teacher speaks, they hear the
teacher's voice but they do not really listen. Sometimes they
fall asleep in class. They do very little homework and rarely
use English outside the classroom. The students who believe in
this "language-learning-by-osmosis" theory pick up a
few English words and phrases and manage to understand a little
spoken English. But in real-life situations that require the actual
use of English, they simply cannot function. They have absolutely
no degree of fluency, and it is only with extreme difficulty that
they can utter a statement that is coherent to a native speaker
of English.
When I think of language learning, I see some interesting
parallels to the way we learn spiritual truths. When we come together
with God's people in a church or synagogue, we are like students
coming to learn a foreign language, because the worship of God
requires the learning of His ways and thoughts, which are like
a foreign language to man: "For My thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith Yahweh. For as
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than
your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8f).
Learning God's ways and thoughts, like learning a foreign
language, requires time, determination, and intense mental concentration.
Yet many people seem to believe in "religion by osmosis."
They think that just being in church or synagogue will automatically
guarantee all the understanding and learning of God's ways that
they need. Like some of the students I taught, these
worshippers mouth the words of the hymns and prayer books without
thinking very deeply about the meaning of the words. They let their
minds wander as they passively listen to the sermon, much like pupils
who gaze out the window during the teacher's lecture. Some fall
asleep during services. They do no homework -- no private prayer
or Bible study. And like foreign students who rarely use English
outside the classroom, these people rarely speak of spiritual things
outside the walls of the church or synagogue.
The funny thing about language learners who believe the osmosis
theory is this: Even though Americans are unable to understand their
speech, these students can often understand each other. On several
occasions a pupil in my classroom would ask me a question which
was totally unintelligible to me. After asking him to repeat the
question four or five times, I would hear another student say to
me, in a condescending tone of voice, "He said..." and
then proceed to explain the first student's question. Every time
this happened, I knew what the students were thinking: "I understood
Hiroki's question the first time he asked it. Why couldn't the teacher
understand him? Does the teacher have a problem understanding spoken
English?"
Of course the reason such students understand one another's
English is because they all say it the same wrong way. As one of
my pupils, a Russian Jew, told me, "In Russia, I thought I
knew English, because I spoke English only with other Russians.
Now in America, I speak with Americans and I find out I don't know
English."
In the words of the Apostle Paul, "they measure themselves
by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves" (2
Cor. 10:12). Making this mistake in language learning is relatively
harmless. When it comes to learning spiritual truths, however, we
dare not assume something is right simply because the majority of
our religious peers say so. Spiritual truth is not determined by
the opinion of the majority. God's ways are not our ways, nor His
thoughts our thoughts. His ways and His thoughts can be learned,
but not without intense study, sincere prayer, and deep thought
about the issues. It takes time.
The textbook for learning God's ways and thoughts is the
Bible. The teacher is the Holy Spirit, whom Yeshua said "shall
teach you all things" and "will guide you into all truth"
(John 14:26; 16:13). We need to let God's Spirit teach us God's
ways and thoughts from the Scriptures, and stop "measuring
ourselves by ourselves and comparing ourselves among ourselves."
Then we will be on the road to learning the difference between God's
truth and man's opinions. |
