I ran across a quote a while back—actually it’s from an old book that’s still selling millions of copies—that brought to mind the topic of spiritual maturity. What is spiritual maturity?
Many evangelical churches have been built on this myth. I call them Classroom churches. Classroom churches tend to be left-brain oriented and cognitive focused. They stress the teaching of Bible content and doctrine, but give little, if any, emphasis to believers emotional, experiential, and relational development. All you need to be spiritually mature, says one well-known classroom church, is to have doctrine in your frontal lobe. -Rick Warren
Mr. Warren’s statement clearly implies spiritual maturity comes through experience, particularly relational experience, and emotion. He demeans the idea of knowledge as leading to spiritual maturity, specifically calling out doctrine and theology as being bad things to pursue in your Christian walk. But what do the Scriptures say about spiritual maturity? Do the Scriptures say we should be studying doctrine and theology, or do the Scriptures say we should be focused on an experience of God? Probably the most favorite verse among those who say we are to do, rather than study, is in John 15:14.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. John 15:14
Fair enough. But we can’t stop here, and declare a “doing” view of spiritual maturity triumphant. We still need to ask what it is Jesus asked us to do. This is simple enough to answer:
1. To love God.
2. To love one another.
3. To make disciples.
Aha! You see, loving God involves doing nice things for other people, right? It means to be righteous in our lives!
I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:21-14
Okay, so the righteous living path doesn’t work out so well, does it? What does loving God mean, then? Does it mean having an emotional experience? Or doing good for others? Let’s turn to the Scriptures to see if we can find out.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deutoronomy 6:4-7
For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. Malachi 2:7
They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction. They set up their abominations in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. Jeremiah 32:33-34
In the Tanakh, God consistently ties loving God to learning about God, and teaching love to the teaching of the Scriptures. God consistently ties doing to knowing. These are not separate “things,” you can’t get to the point of “knowing enough so I have to do is go do stuff.”
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