That’s a little freaky …

I’m a freak.

I am one of those people who actually enjoyed more than a decade of higher education. I could easily be a perpetual student, but I couldn’t be a professional one.

While pursuing three different degrees, I relished the learning environment. I thrived in digging into books, soaking in lectures, participating in discussions, conducting research, articulating positions in writing, serving in an internship, and all the various means of challenging one to think, learn, and grow.

But the reason I enjoyed being a student was primarily because of the opportunity to put to use what I learned. Whether it was to improve myself, or in service to others (it was both), my educational pursuits were connected to a purpose greater than simple theoretical exercise.

That’s why I couldn’t be a professional student. To simply bury myself in study for the sake of the intellectual exercise alone is empty. Knowledge and understanding are intended to have meaning through application. Applying the understanding one has developed by growing in knowledge is the difference between the perpetual student and the professional student.

It’s also the difference between being a disciple and being a professional student.

As disciples, we’re perpetual students of Christ, but with the intent that we apply to our lives all that we are learning.The Apostle Paul described this kind of discipleship for us:

“So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better,” Colossians 1:9-10.

Paul describes learning as a means of personal growth that yields fruit. Growing in knowledge should lead to greater understanding and wisdom, and the application of such resulting in producing “… every kind of good fruit.” That’s why Paul put such a great emphasis on application when he wrote, “Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me — everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you,” Philippians 4:9

The Apostle Peter echoes Paul in encouraging us to be students who apply what we learn.

“Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” 2 Peter 3:18.

It is possible to grow in knowledge through book learning, but you cannot grow in grace that way. To grow in grace requires us to imitate Christ, to live out in all our relationships what we have both received from and learned of Him. Growing as a disciple is living out one’s learning, becoming wiser not only in our thinking but also in our doing, until both become more and more like the One we are students of. Peter urges us to become “freaks,” disciples who “crave” this kind of learning.

“Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness,” 1 Peter 2;2.

What kind of student are you? Are you a lurker, one who looks at the things of Christ without applying them? Or a learner, a student of Christ who puts into practice all that he or she learns? Or are you a student at all?

Scotty