“One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” Ps.27:4
I’m struck by the wonderful symmetry found here in David’s pursuit of God. He came as both an enthralled worshipper (“to behold the beauty of the Lord”) and as an eager learner (“to inquire in His temple”). He desired to be ravished by the sight of God’s stunning beauty and blazing perfection. He also longed to know more fully and deeply the ways and wisdom of His Lord. He was an all-out extremist; but an extremist at both ends of the spectrum. What an important combination! How desperately it is needed today!
All too often our churches and individual Christians are focusing on one or the other of these vital components. But not often enough on both. For some it is preoccupation with passion for God through worship (which is seen primarily as music), and what matters most is that the heart has been touched and stirred by its encounter. Others are equally absorbed with sound bible doctrine, and what matters most to them is that their minds have been stimulated to consider the word of God in new and fresh ways. Both have their crucial roles in true spirituality, and one can never go too deeply into either. But they must always walk arm in arm, as best of friends and necessary complements to each other. In a word, there must be both light in the mind and heat in the heart if we are truly worshipping God "in Spirit and in truth." Jn. 4:23,24 Jonathan Edwards noted this very issue in his classic work, Religious Affections:
"As on the one hand, there must be light in the understanding, as well as an affected fervent heart; for where there is heat without light, there can be nothing divine or heavenly in the heart; so, on the other hand, where there is a kind of light without heat, a head stored with notions and speculations with a cold and unaffected heart, there can be nothing divine in that light, that knowledge is no true spiritual knowledge of divine things. If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart."
Bishop Moule, a great scholar himself, noted this same phenomenon when he wrote:
“Beware of an untheological devotion. There is no contradiction between mind and heart, between theology and devotion. Devotional hours do not mean hours when thought is absent; on the contrary, if devotion is to be real it should be characterized by thought. Meditation is not abstraction, nor is devotion dreaminess. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy…mind’ is an essential part of ‘the first and great commandment’ (Mtt.22:37,38). A piety that is mere pietism, evangelicalism that does not continually ponder the profound truths of the New Testament, can never be strong or do any true service to the gospel cause. We must indeed beware of ‘untheological devotion’.
But we must also beware of ‘undevotional theology’. This is the opposite error, and it constitutes an equally grave danger. A hard, dry, intellectual study of theology will yield no spiritual fruit…it is the heart that makes the theologian; and a theology that does not spring from spiritual experience is doomed to decay, to deadness, and to disaster.”
How profoundly insightful! And how profoundly important for healthy and thriving spirituality. May God grant that we may become 21st century extremists…only at both ends of the spectrum!
Flashpoint: Light in the mind and heat in the heart are the bride and groom of dynamic spirituality. What God has joined together let no man put asunder.
