Primal - By Mark Batterson - Chapter 5 - Seventy Faces

Once again I am challenged by some of Mark's analogies and comments he makes in Chapter five of his book Primal. Being a musical person and someone who enjoys singing I loved the story of the musical trainer working with opera singers who could not hit certain notes that fell within their vocal range. After testing the singers ears they learned that they could not hit those particular notes because they couldn't hear the notes. The problem wasn't singing. The problem was hearing!

Until you hear the voice of God, you won't be able to sing His song. Why, because you're out of tune.

One of the complaints Pastors often hear from people leaving the church is that "they are not being fed". As Pastors we do our best to feed our congregations every week... but think about this... we learned as toddlers to feed ourselves and we should do the same thing when feeding on God's word. If you are relying on a preacher to be fed, that is a dangerous place to be. Listening to a sermon is acquiring second hand knowledge. It's learning based on someone else's experiences. If you want to grow spiritually, you need a consistent diet of scripture.

Let me share with you some excerpts from page 83 through page 85 of Chapter five; The Bible is not an end in itself. In other words, the goal of knowing the Bible isn't Bible knowledge. The goal of knowing the Bible is knowing God.... The truth is that most of us are already educated way beyond the level of our obedience. We learn more and do less, thinking all the while that we're growing spiritually.

Have you ever audited a class? You get no credit, you just take in lots of information. If we're not careful the same can happen in our spiritual lives. You don't get credit for auditing scripture. You've got to put it into practice. Every word of Scripture, with its seventy faces and six hundred thousand meanings, must be translated via obedience.

Obedience is the way our life becomes a unique translation of the Bible. And, ultimately it's the way you love God with all your soul!

He wants to write His-story through your life. And Scripture is the script.

Read it. Mediate on it. Then live it out.

Pastor John