Unhurried Living | Helping Christians Rest Deeper ... - From Scribe to Prophet: Learning to See with God’s Eyes

0:00What if the deepest work of your spiritual life isn't about collecting more information about God, but learning to see everything with God's eyes? Many of us have been formed to speak accurately about faith to quote Scripture well and to explain theology clearly. That's good. But along the way we can sometimes lose touch with something more essential, a living first-hand communion with the God we proclaim. Hello friends, I'm Alan Fadling and you're listening to the Unhurried Living Podcast, where we inspire you to rest deeper, live fuller, and lead better. In today's episode, I want to explore the difference between knowing about God and truly being with God, between the voice of the scribe and the voice of the prophet.

1:00And listen for an invitation into a deeper interior life, where ordinary life is seen through the eyes of God. After a word from our sponsor, we'll begin. Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The Key James Bible Study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with the Timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organized. Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store, growing your faith every day. Search for King James Bible Study KJV and download the app today. If you're new to the podcast, welcome, I'm glad you found us. If you haven't already, please subscribe and share this podcast with your friends and colleagues. I've been on a long journey of seeking to live in closer communion with God most of my

2:06adult life. I bet many of you listening could say the same thing. Today, I want to say a few things about that quest and about what I've been learning along the way. I've mentioned here before that for the last four years or so, I've been engaged in what I call a spiritual classics study project with help from scholars who are much more knowledgeable than me. I've made my way through more than 20 spiritual classics from throughout church history to read slowly and to seek to incorporate into my life and leadership. More generally, I read books like this in a particular way. As I mentioned, I tried to read them a little more slowly than I sometimes read other sorts of books. I tried to read at the pace of receptive listening. I read as a student, not a student sitting in a classroom preparing for an end of semester

3:08test, but a student learning an artisan way of life from a master. I don't want to learn spiritual wisdom as much as I want to live wisely. Also when I read, I'm listening and watching for brief passages that capture my attention. I listen for a sentence or a paragraph that, as Mark Buchanan, a pastor and writer puts it in his book, Spiritual Rhythm, Sings, Rings or Stings. I capture it for later reflection. I draw that quotation into my journal and prayerfully respond to it. I'm watching for something I can put into practice, some way I can live or lead differently, some good thing I can learn to embody, so I can share it from my life with others in the future. In that sense, I spend more time these days preparing myself as a teacher than preparing

4:15talks to give or sermons to preach. In this episode, I'm going to share four such quotations from authors, recent and agent, whose wisdom has guided my steps recently. First, here's something beautiful I came across quite some time back in A.W. Tozer's classic, The Pursuit of God. In it, Tozer is describing the difference between a scribe and a prophet. He writes, The scribe tells us what he has read, and the prophet tells us what he has seen. The distinction is not an imaginary one. In the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen, there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with Orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe often sounds over evangelicalism, but the church waits for

5:21the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the wonder that is God. Now Tozer wrote those words in 1948. Can you feel the difference between what Tozer calls a scribe and what he calls a prophet? Jesus had little patience with the Jewish scribes who quoted each other as experts, but seemed unable to speak with authority from their own lived encounter with God. Scribes read about God, write about God, and talk about God. Prophets speak what they have heard from the living God. Scribes, because they are not in touch with the God who reveals Himself to Moses as compassionate and gracious? Well, they often struggle to speak a word of compassion or grace.

6:24What prophets bring us is the living voice of this God. Being a scribe is tempting, because I can maintain the illusion of control over my spiritual life that way, but there is no controlling a life lived in communion with the living God. It is my longing to be a person who speaks a living word from a living God. A more recent prophetic voice is that of Eugene Peterson. Now, he wrote a number of books meant to encourage pastors and Christian leaders in this living way of relating to God. Whether or not he had read Tozer's words, or he and Tozer just followed the same living God, he shares this in his book, The Contemplative Pastor. He says, I don't want to dispense copied handouts that describe God's business.

7:29I want to witness out of my own experience. I don't want to live as a parasite on the first hand spiritual life of others, but to be personally involved with all my senses, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. Can you hear the sting of the prophet in what Peterson says here? Ministry and service that comes alive must be an expression of living communion with God, excitement or hype is thin and it's temporary, vitality runs deep and it lasts. There's a great difference between sharing someone else's exciting experience and sharing my own interactive relationship with God. Again, it's the difference between being a scribe and being a prophet.

8:29I often find myself praying something like this, Grant, Lord, that I might keep on seeking you, tasting your goodness and contemplating you. May grace make that possible for me all the days of my life and then may anything I say or write or do be enriched with that sort of lived grace and trust. Now, there's a third classic. This one's a little bit older and this is the spirit I discern, but Eugene Peterson has just said, when I read spiritual classics, I try very hard not to read such books like a parasite as Peterson puts it, but as someone hungry and seeking bread to eat. One spiritual writer from my spiritual classics project is John of Rosebrook, who lived

9:31a couple generations before the imitation of Christ and helped prepare the soil from which that book eventually grew. His quiet, priced, centered teaching shaped a community called the brethren of the common life. Reminding believers that deep faith is formed not to hurry or through display, but through steady attentiveness to God. Toward the beginning of one of his classics titled The Spiritual Espausals, he explained what he was trying to do in this written work. This is what he says. We do not intend to speak here of a person's initial conversion or of the graces which were first bestowed when he turned from sin to virtue, rather we wish to speak of a day to day increase in new gifts and new virtues and of a present daily coming of Christ our

10:37bridegroom into our soul. Let me read that last little bit one more time. We wish to speak of a day to day increase in new gifts and new virtues and of a present daily coming of Christ our bridegroom into our soul. In that context, Rosebrook speaks of the coming of Christ in three ways. First, his initial coming in the incarnation, second, is daily coming to our soul, and then finally is coming again at the end of the ages. Jesus came, He continues to come to us, and He will come again. This biblical idea of Christ our bridegroom is why this classic work is called The Spiritual Espousal. It's Rosebrook's way of talking about an intimate relational walk with Jesus, not just believing

11:42in Christ, but learning to live in loving communion with Him, where trust, surrender and love mature over time. As one of my mentors loved to say, we are not only saved by grace but we live by grace day by day and moment to moment. We are always in need of the generous, empowering and guiding presence of God. God is always baking fresh bread in the oven of our souls that we might share with others to bless them. Finally, there's one more author I've quoted on this podcast before who offers his own perspective on what it's like to live in vital communion with God in his grace in every moment. Thomas H. Green was a seasoned spiritual director whose writings have helped many Christians, including me, understand seasons when prayer feels empty, not so much as a failure, but

12:47as an expression of God's deepening work. Green said this about the gospel of John. He said, It seems to me that this is one of the central insights of Saint John's gospel. The interior life is not a question of seeing extraordinary things, but rather of seeing the ordinary things with the eyes of God. John's gospel of the floor is often described as the most mystical, well in the best sense of that word. And Christians use the word mystical, they're not talking about wild visions or spiritual fireworks. They're just naming a faith that learns to see everyday life, work or relationships, suffering or joy, in and through God's loving presence. So much of the gospel of John is devoted to the teachings of Jesus in the upper room,

13:48for example, in chapters 13 through 17, which include his extended prayer for unity. In that prayer, Jesus speaks of the mutual indwelling that he prays for and invites us into. But it often feels like you of us have embraced this invitation and enter deeply into it. This interior life is not measured primarily in profound spiritual experiences or words or images received in prayer or any other dramatic happening in God's presence. It is, as Green says it, learning to see every ordinary thing through God's eyes. A deep, rooted life in the Spirit enables us to see the creative, caring hand of God in everything that surrounds us. God loves everything he's made. God cares for everything in creation.

14:51God's love for everyone and everything endures forever. So perhaps this is the quiet invitation at the heart of all of these voices, Tozer, Peterson, Rusebrook and Green. Not to despise learning or reading or study, but to let these serve something deep. The danger is not that we become scribes. We all begin there. The danger is, if we stop there, scribes gather words. Profits are shaped by presence. Scribes speak accurately. Profits speak truthfully. Scribes report on God. Profits bear witness to a God they have met. And the good news is this. These are not born that way. They are formed over time, in hidden places, through patient attentiveness, through prayer

15:53that often feels ordinary dry or unremarkable. They are formed as we learn to see ordinary life with the eyes of God. This is the interior life Jesus invites us into. It's not dramatic. It's not flashy. It's not hurried. It's a life where Christ continues to come to us daily in grace. A life where the Spirit trains our vision, so that what we once saw as mundane begins to shimmer with meaning. I hope for myself and for you is not that we would have more to say about God, but that we would become people who have truly been with God. People whose words, when they are needed, carry the quiet weight of lived grace. May we read well, may we listen deeply, and may God in time make us more than scribes,

17:00may he form us into people who speak of who we have seen. Thank you for listening to the Unhurried Living Podcast to learn more about us, visit unhurriedliving.com. In the show notes, you'll find helpful links and information about our partner, life audio, and all of their other faith-centered podcasts. Hey, I'm Dr. Sean McDowell, Professor, author and host of The Sean McDowell Show. I tackle the hardest questions about God, truth, and culture, combining solid research with practical insight and engaging stories so you can build a confident, informed faith. Now available on the Life Audio Network to reach more listeners like you, follow the Sean McDowell Show on your favorite podcast app or visit lifeaudio.com to start listening.

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