It will be in vain for me to stock my library, or organise societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for book, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle axe and weapons of war. M’Cheyne, writing to a ministerial friend, who was travelling with a view to perfecting himself in the German tongue, used language identical with our own: – ‘I know you will apply hard to German, but do not forget the culture of the inner man – I mean of the heart…Is is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God’ (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, Zondervan, p.9).
In my first post dealing with this quote, we noted the importance of dealing with issues of the soul rather than simply thinking about external gifts. I offer now another application of this quote:
Do not claim to be concerned with ‘culture’ if you are not primarily concerned with the culture of your own soul. Do you speak about redeeming culture and yet not think about your own redemption? Do you preach that Christ can restore culture and yet not regularly consider what he has done, and is doing, in your own soul? Are you more concerned with the broader culture than with your own personal holiness? Are you zealous for transformation and yet are not transformed? Do you harp about human flourishing in culture and yet find that your soul is not flourishing? Do you even consider these things?
In short, do you seek something in external culture that you rarely consider in application to your own soul? Consider well the culture of the inner man and believe that your own message applies to your soul:
…A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul
(Works of John Owen, vol. 16, p. 76).
Matthew 7:5 “…take the plank out of your own eye…” would appear to be applicable here. I think that particular teaching from Christ is often explained to mean “don’t bother teaching people stuff you don’t know already,” or worse still, “mind your own business.” Yet I think the real application has to do with Spurgeon’s “culture of the inner man,” which is to say, examine your motivation. Why would you be so concerned about the people around you and not yourself? If your first and foremost desire is to “love the Lord your God,” then the first place you can do this is with your own repentance. It doesn’t stop there, but it is the closest place to start. This saying is true on both a macro and micro level. Whether we are talking about “Saving Faith,” or faith applied to a specific area in sanctification.
I feel that the insight provided by Spurgeon’s “culture of the inner man” brings to light epistemological concerns. Such concerns are often healed too lightly in the church. The common answers to kids worrying about such things hold very little water. This creates the dual problem of 1)providing an escape from reality from self-deceivers, and 2)providing an easy hunting ground for those who would desire to sow nasty seeds of doubt in believer’s minds. For myself, it was C.S. Lewis’ conversion story in “Surprised by Joy” that cleared one of the big hurdles in the “problem of knowing one’s authenticity.” He was the first person in my life to point out that the reason analysis of affectation is so difficult is because you cannot infact be experiencing both at the same time anymore than you can be swimming, and surveying the pool at the same time. Polanyi helped further with this issue. (You cannot play the piano and observe your playing at the same time very well.)
Yet the real, raw material of life that gives confirmation to faith (whether we mean Faith applied to a particular area, or general Saving Faith,) is the material gleaned in trials and tribulations. When the world has offered you something quicker, easier, faster, than Jesus- do you leave Jesus behind? When the world offers you pain and sorrow for Jesus’ sake- do you leave Jesus behind? When the Pilgrim passes through these desert places on his path, what is vexing to at once experience, is healing to remember if you persevere. In such places, God “searches the heart,” and “tries the reins” and brings to light the truth or falsehood of all our other claims. Thus we come to know the authenticity of our inner man.
Would you agree with this?
I agree with everything you wrote. The main reason I chose the particular posts to share with you that I did was simply to try to throw out some ideas for encouraging people to engage the Bible. It is key to cultivating the life of your soul, and it takes discipline to continue to do it in a way that will form you – actually in-FORM you, rather than just give you information. There’s a difference. That highlights two of the problems with our technological culture: 1) it works through images and soundbites and therefore cultivates a short, image and soundbite driven attention span and thought process; and 2) it bombards you with information from the outside rather than the sort of in-FORMATION that we want as Christians, where God is forming us and shaping us from within (in the inner man, the soul).