"Sometimes we have really incredible emotional experiences, and we ride on their fumes for as long as they will last, and then we lose confidence, passion, and focus. We're like junkies, always searching for the new high, and we go to camps, conferences, worship services, all in an effort to get that high. It should be obvious to us that this cycle is very self-focused approach to our walk with God, but because of our flesh, it isn't. We make it all about us, but the essence of the Christian life is the polar opposite, it's about others; God first, our neighbor second. But what's more, our faith is tied to these experiences. If we don't feel good, maybe God doesn't love anymore. We want an experience as God's proof that he loves us, and that he forgives us, and that we are his children, but experiences aren't what God want's our focus to be on.
Our focus needs to be on the scripture. Now that might sound a little boring to you, but first of all, I'd say you don't understand how glorious God's word is, and secondly, why else didn't Jesus give these men an experience? This was a long walk they were on, and Jesus spent all of it talking to them about God's word. He wanted them to be focus on the revealed written word of God.
But why? The Bible is outside of us, it never changes. It says the same thing now as it did a thousand years ago and the same as the thousand years before that. God's word is the same whether we've had our full eight hours rest, or if we're pulling an all-nighter. Scripture is just as true when we are starving as it is when we are full. It's not affected by us and our fickle imagination. Jesus was showing these two disciples everything they should have already known and understood from the Old Testament. They weren't believing the scriptures, and without that, it didn't matter how many experiences these men had, their faith would always be on shaky ground.
Consider Romans 10:17, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." Notice the absence of some super spiritual experience. God's gracious gift of saving and sanctifying faith comes to us through God's word. Peter says almost the exact same thing in chapter 1 verse 23 of his first epistle, "Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God." These men needed their faith strengthened, and Jesus thought it was important that their faith be built upon the solid rock of His word, rather than even a real, true experience. Peter was at the transfiguration event of Christ, a real experience, but even with something like that in his memory, he says, "and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed." Peter is not saying that God's word is more confirmed by his experience, as if its truthfulness was in question, but rather, he is saying that the scripture is more fully confirmed than even the most amazing spiritual experience man has ever known.
What about us? It's not a complicated application, and it's nothing new. Sola Scriptura, which is Latin for Scripture Alone. Scripture is what we base our faith and understanding of God on, and nothing else. We look To God's word as our source of faith, strength, and guidance. It is sufficient and efficient for these things. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."
May God grant us the grace to love his Word more and more.
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- Marshall Proctor from The Calvinist Lounge (used with permission)
