“Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you. In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The hardest chemistry class I took in college was Physical Chemistry. The professor was great, but the concepts were difficult. Making things even more challenging was the fact that on every exam he included one question that we hadn’t covered in class. It was a chance for us to apply the concepts we had learned so far to something entirely new. I don’t think anyone ever did well on that question. The whole purpose of a test—a fair test anyway—is to hold you accountable for what you have learned to make sure you have really learned it. God operates in much the same way with truth. Let’s talk about it.

The first thing we should probably establish here is what Paul means when he says, “let all of us who are mature think this way.” You will perhaps not be surprised that the answer is going to be found in the context. Paul has been talking about his rejection of worldly affirmations of worth and identity, of good works that somehow move him closer to a relationship with God, and instead embracing faith in Jesus as the only actual key to salvation. All those other things not only don’t help, they can actually serve to move us in the opposite direction.

Most recently, as we talked about over the last couple of days, our thinking about salvation needs to live in the tension around the fact that although it is all God from start to finish, we have an important role to play by working with His Spirit to move us into conformity with the image of Christ as He enables us to do that work in the first place.

To borrow language Paul uses in other places, we are being saved. Salvation is a past, present, and future affair. Our eternal destiny is secure in a moment when we place our faith in Christ, but the full transformation into the likeness of Jesus is something that happens much more gradually and requires effort and intentionality from us. And all of this is done in pursuit of “God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus,” that is, the eternal destiny we will receive on His return and the restoration of all things. We will yet be fully saved.

This is the thinking about salvation that should characterize all those who are mature in their faith. But not everyone thinks like this. Folks who are new to the faith will bring ideas into it with them from before their embrace of Christ. They will come preloaded with ideas from the world about how the Christian life works. This isn’t necessarily a good thing because many of those ideas will range from inconsistent with to antithetical to sound Christian doctrine, but it is a normal thing.

Although we are made totally new in Christ and cleansed from all our sin, God does not do some kind of a mental hard reset, purging all of our old and false ideas in order to make way for new and true ones. Instead, we grow and learn gradually as we engage with the Scriptures on a regular basis and sit under sound teaching in the church from mature believers. Ideally, we are discipled well by a more mature believer who helps us to grow in our faith and its practice over time.

I recently saw where a young man whose faith journey I have been able to play at least a small part of posted a comment stating an interpretation of an important text that was not merely incorrect, but radically divergent from orthodoxy. I took the opportunity to offer gentle correction through a short explanation of the more correct interpretation along with an invitation to further explore the subject together. This young man simply picked up an idea that was inconsistent with the Scriptures somewhere along the way. That’s obviously not a good thing, but it is something that is normal. It is also something that can be lovingly addressed and corrected.

This is what Paul has in mind when he goes on to say, “And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.” God doesn’t save us and then set us adrift to figure things out on our own. He goes with us through His Holy Spirit to teach and train us in what is right. Some of that training, a great deal of it in fact, comes through our regular and intentional engagement with the Scriptures. Those are words breathed out by God, as Paul puts it, and words He uses to teach, rebuke, correct, and train us in righteousness. If you are a follower of Jesus and you are not in the Word daily, you are cutting yourself off from the primary tool God uses to shape you in the image of Christ. That’s like going diving without an air hose. You can try it, but you’re not going to last long.

The other major source God uses to shape and direct us properly in the faith is the church. Being around other believers who have studied and grown and understand the things of God better than we do is essential to our healthy growth and development. Growing in Christ is not a solo sport. It is a team affair from start to finish. We were not meant to do it alone. Someone who is in the Word every day but who never gets any input from other believers to help direct and, if necessary, redirect their thinking here and there is really not much better off than someone who isn’t ever in the word. Without that positive feedback loop, the likelihood that we accidentally develop ideas about God that simply aren’t true and which will lead us away from Him if we lean into them (like this young man espoused) is just too high. We need the church. God uses the church. We have to be engaged for Him to be able to do that.

But lest this be a point of fear and trembling for us because we don’t want to mess up and go astray along the way, God doesn’t expect us to have all of it right straight out of the gate. He knows we are starting from scratch and He is patient with us as we grow. “In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.” We should pursue the faith to the extent we understand it, trusting that as we go, our faithful God will help us understand more and more so that we can live it more and more fully.

Growing in Christ involves just that: growing. Learning. Maturing. God does this in us and for us, and He does it through us for those around us. When we commit to the path of growing, our faithful God will walk with us all the way until we are perfected in the image of Christ. That’s a goal worth pursuing.