Self-justification is a human trait. The example I am thinking of is relevant to the EJournal which is concerned with the study of the Scriptures. Let us suppose you don’t do much reading and study of the Scriptures, how do you justify this? There are various reasons: ‘I am busy’, ‘I need to put in long hours to keep my job’, ‘I am tired, I need to relax’, ‘There are just too many things to do, what with family and work’, ‘I can’t, I don’t know how’, ‘It’s too hard’, ‘I have college’, and so on. These are practical reasons that can often be heard: Life is very busy. But my concern is about the spiritual self-justification that can accompany these practical reasons.
Spiritual self-justification is about life-style choices and making our conscience comfortable with those choices. There are several spiritual justifications for not studying the Scriptures and neglecting Bible reading. For example, ‘The Gospel is simple, we do not need to study’, ‘I like/prefer exhortation rather than study, that is what is important and it is up-building’, ‘We should praise the Lord rather than study the Scriptures; praise is encouraging’, and so on. Spiritual self-justification is the process when one spiritual good is used to cast aside another spiritual good and wilfully see its neglect. Such justification, if left unchecked as a pattern of behaviour over time, leads to the motivation for study becoming atrophied. What passes for ‘study’ is forever then the level of the ‘introductory’ (or the ‘dumbed–down’). The deeper things of Scripture are never approached. The malaise is set and it has its spiritual justification.
God has given us writing. For us it is old writing. The context of it being given is not always easy to recover. It is often difficult writing. It has deeper levels of meaning. It is very varied. We have it in translation but the writing was given in different languages. If God knows us from the beginning, and this is the nature of the writing he has given us, it would seem that he requires us to respond to him by studying. We are not quoting a verse here which says, ‘Study the Bible’; rather, we are saying that the nature of the writing itself requires study in order to be understood. God has planned his revelation so that it appears in this kind of writing (the varied and difficult writing in the Bible). Our response to him should meet what he has written rather than our own needs.
As individuals (or ecclesias) we may neglect the study of the Scriptures. This will be evident in talks, in our own speech, and possibly in our other behaviour. This, however, is not my complaint; neither is it the case that I am lamenting our busy lives. I just don’t think that we should buttress our busy lives (a problem) with a spiritual self-justification that neglects the Scriptures.
What is a Bible Student?