BASIC BIBLE DOCTRINE

Essential Tools for Christian Growth

Lesson Seven

Perception and Application

by John McReynolds

NOTE TO THE READER: In case you are rereading this lesson since it was originally posted and you notice some differences, it is because I had to rewrite the article after accidently deleting it from the website. I had not backed up the lesson, and I had no way to repost it, so I had to do a complete rewrite. This small cautionary tale illustrates the value of backups in our electronic age!

J. M.

Before we begin our study let’s spend a few moments in silent prayer, confessing our known sins if need be—claiming the promise of I John 1:9— and otherwise preparing our hearts for the study of the Word of God. Let us pray:

We’re grateful, Heavenly Father for another opportunity in grace to feast on your marvelous Word. We pray that the Holy Spirit will take these doctrines and make them a source of blessing and growth in our lives that we might be imitators of Christ—for we ask it in His name, amen.

Please open the Word of Truth to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 4. Matt. 4:1-11 is an account of the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. Let’s read the first 4 verses:

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’”

In verse 4 Jesus was quoting from Deut 8:3. He had learned this scripture at some time in his childhood. Now the man Jesus, like all men, went through childhood. And during His childhood He learned all the things other children must learn. Jewish children of that day all went to Hebrew school, as orthodox Jewish children still do today. In his family and in the Jewish community in which He was reared he learned all the basic tools He needed to apply in life. We reviewed these tools in our previous lesson. He maintained objectivity by resting in God’s promises and applying a relaxed mental attitude toward persons and situations in His life. He expressed genuine humility within the organizational humility of the synagogue, and the enforced humility of submission to the authority of the Rabbi. And all of this was in the context of His greater submission to the will of the Father in His plan for the Incarnation.

What Jesus was doing out there in the wilderness, in the presence of Satan, was using another tool in the believer’s tool belt. He had previously been perceptive to the divine truth contained in Deut 8:3. He believed it and received it into His heart by faith, where it became useable truth that He could apply in the appropriate circumstances. This is what He did when in the incredibly stressful circumstances of His temptation in the desert. He had previously inhaled Bible doctrine in perception; now He was exhaling it in application. This same tool we see Jesus using is what we’re studying tonight.

Faith and the Mentality of the Soul

Before we look at that, let’s look at the biblical view of the mentality for a moment, which we have illustrated in the graphic to the right. Scriptures distinguish between two aspects of the mentality—one is called in the Greek of the New Testament the nous (νοῦς) which is translated mind, and the other is called the kardia (καρδία) in the Greek, which is translated heart.

Now when kardia is used in the NT it has nothing to do with the blood-pumping organ of the same name—so don’t get side-tracked by errors today dealing with the heart and spirituality. When you find kardia in the NT, it generally refers to the fountain and seat of the understanding, or the faculty and seat of the intelligence. In today’s English “heart” has a strong emotional connotation. This is not the case in the Greek. While the concept of kardia does include the idea of emotions, its primary reference is to that part of the mind where knowledge and understanding is complete and is applicable. The term kardia carries a strong sense of wisdom.

The nous—the mind—is where knowledge is initially understood, and stored—at least temporarily. It is the staging area of the mentality. Knowledge here is not really applicable knowledge. All knowledge has to be believed in order to be applied. In the secular realm, it may be believed on the basis of empiricism, rationalism, or faith. Once it’s believed it becomes applicable. I said a moment ago that knowledge is stored in the nous temporarily. If it remains unused it will eventually be discarded. All knowledge—spiritual or secular—must be reinforced by use in order to remain useable—and it must be believed before it can really be used.

So now we have this big pile of knowledge sitting in the middle of the nous. What happens to it now? In the spiritual realm, knowledge is transferred by faith to the kardia, where it can be combined with other knowledge and applied to various situations. The kardia, as the seat of the understanding, is the launching pad—the place of application—where knowledge becomes useable. Again, this applies to both spiritual and secular knowledge. The difference between spiritual and secular knowledge is what happens to them when they are believed. Essentially, what happens to spiritual knowledge is that it undergoes a transformation when faith is applied to it.

Before we look at what happens in this transformation, I want to state that faith is one of the most basic systems for determining truth—in the secular realm as well as the spiritual realm. In fact it is really the most important, or at least the most used. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that 98 percent of what you know right now someone else told you, and you accepted it on faith.

Many years ago I obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. I had to learn a lot of chemistry to earn that degree—about 140 semester-hours worth as I recall. You might think that I used empiricism a great deal in learning that subject matter, since chemistry is associated with experiments and laboratories and such. But the truth is I learned almost all of my chemical knowledge by faith! Now it is true I verified some of the information I got by faith in the classroom by empiricism—experimentation in the laboratory in other words. But mainly I learned the subjects by faith. I trusted the knowledge and credibility of my instructors and professors to teach me the body of knowledge necessary to get that degree.

Obviously, taking some things on faith is not always a good idea. Shady used car salesmen will try to get you to buy a car on faith and end up selling you a lemon. Politicians promise a great deal and usually fail to deliver. Cult leaders promise spiritual fulfillment and end up fleecing their flock. The world is full of people who are ready to sell you a bill of goods that ends up not being what it was advertised to be.

But in the case of God and His word, you can absolutely trust in what He says. This is because you are now dealing with a Person of perfect integrity, infinite knowledge, absolute good, and One who has your best interest at heart. And even though He has chosen to use imperfect, flawed men like me to communicate His message, He has arranged things so that you can be assured of receiving only the spiritual truth He intends for you to have. After dealing with all of the hucksters in the world, that assurance is a breath of fresh air. There’s change you can really believe in! God has designed a system that allows you to perceive His truth by faith, and then apply that truth by faith, in the most practical ways imaginable.

The Grace System of Comprehension

Faith Perception

God has designed what we call the Grace System of Comprehension (GSC). We have now added a little bit to our earlier graphic of the mentality of the soul. It works like this: The believer, filled with the Holy Spirit, sits down to take in the Word. He hears the teaching of the Word. When it enters his mind—his nous—it is called gnosis (γνῶσις) in the Greek.

Gnosis is the word for understood knowledge. At this point it is just academic knowledge—it is not useable in the spiritual realm. When God’s Word is heard, as gnosis is doubly unusable—for to the natural mind it is foolishness. It cannot be comprehended without the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

But when someone believes the Bible doctrine he has just been taught—the knowledge he just received and understood only as gnosis—something miraculous happens. The Holy Spirit takes the gnosis, which was merely understood academically, and converts it into epignosis (ἐπίγνωσις), which is spiritual knowledge that is fully understood. The reason this is miraculous is that it is not humanly possible for the natural mind to understand spiritual knowledge! There has to be the indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit, and only believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have this. Look at what the Word of God says in I Cor 2:14 says—“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

I can’t say it any plainer than that.

So to summarize: The believer hears the teaching of the Word, and it comes into the 1^st compartment of the mentality, the nous or mind. There it is gnosis or knowledge. When the believer accepts it—believes it—it is transferred by faith into the 2^nd compartment, the kardia or heart. There it exists as epignosis, or full knowledge having been transformed by the Holy Spirit when the gnosis was believed and transferred by faith. That is faith perception.

Faith Application

Now, we’ll look at faith application. Let’s look at our hypothetical believer, sitting in Bible class. Now he may be tired—had a rough day, but he’s still here, expressing genuine humility in his faithfulness to the teaching of the Word. But his ability to concentrate is not up to par—his thoughts keep wandering back to that disagreement he had with his co-worker.

Then he remembers where he is, and he has to confess and get back into fellowship and resume focusing on what the preacher is saying. By the time he goes through this a few times, Bible class is at an end, and he’s lucky if he got half of what was said. He might have only understood half of that to transfer it by faith-perception to his kardia.

By the time he has an opportunity to apply the epignosis to the worship of God or circumstances of life, he might only be able to recall half of that—and so he finds that he is able to apply less than 15% of what was originally presented.

Now the amount he ultimately retains isn’t really relevant. Other believers may have gotten more, still others less. The Holy Spirit guarantees every believer the same perfect quality of epignosis or full-knowledge, but depending on their level of maturity, their ability to concentrate, their linguistic abilities, the amount of bible teaching ultimately converted to applicable epignosis will vary from believer to believer. The equality in the Christian life has to do not with the amount but with the quality of the epignosis—since the Holy Spirit converts it, it’s absolutely perfect.

What’s important is that this process occur consistently. When done over and over again, day after day, epignosis accumulates in the soul, and becomes building material for the SHS, and application to life. As Isa 28:10 puts it,

…precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.

This is how the believer advances and develops momentum in the Christian life—plugging along every day. There’s no place in the Christian life for sudden enthusiasm for Bible study, then just as sudden apathy and disappearance. Some folks get really enthused because they hear something they like, but then when it gets boring, after a while you never see them again. We’ve all seen folks like that. And not a few of us have been folks like that.

So after a time, perhaps a few years, perhaps many, the believer builds up enough epignosis doctrine in his soul that he becomes self-sustaining. Now that doesn’t mean that he outgrows his need for face to face teaching and daily Bible study—he’ll require that as long as he lives, just as people require food and water every day. But he does come to the point where he begins to reap the rewards and blessings of his consistency.

Applying Impersonal Love

Now there are two basic techniques to applying epignosis doctrine to life. The first is applying impersonal love. We studied this a couple of lessons ago, so this should be review for you. Impersonal love, or unconditional love as it is also known, always involves the idea of separation. In personal love we want to be close to the object of our love.

Impersonal love does not require this closeness. In fact, when we apply impersonal love it’s usually because the object of our love has become unlovable—at least temporarily. So to protect ourselves we distance ourselves from them, at least mentally and spiritually.

When you as a believer have determined to grow spiritually, you can count on it, you will receive countless distractions. Friends will call you up and harass you to get you to go to this party, or that ball game, or see a movie. If you are truly committed to spiritual growth, you will have to handle these well-intentioned obstacles to growth. You may end up losing a few friends. But regardless, you will have to separate from them by applying impersonal love so as not to become distracted in your routine for the intake of the Word of God.

Now in most cases it’s temporary—most friends who are truly friends will forgive what they may see as a harmless eccentricity. But others may be offended at your priorities. When this happens, you’ve just gotten your first test. Will you follow after God, or will you forsake Him, who died for you to follow after your “friend”?

Impersonal love frequently involves shifting quickly from personal love to impersonal love when a friend or loved one becomes unlovable. Impersonal love provides the ability to mentally separate—to retreat into your own spiritual house and maintain your spiritual equilibrium. It also serves as damage control. When a friend or loved one acts badly toward you, in impersonal love you don’t compound the problem by retaliating. Be generous with impersonal love—you’ll get plenty of opportunities. And remember—there are plenty of times when someone else has to shift into impersonal love because of you.

The Faith-Logic Technique

The second technique is what I call faith-logic. Faith logic is a basic tool for solving problems wherein the believer rests in faith, then applies epignosis doctrine to the situation in a logical manner, and reaches a conclusion that is consistent with divine viewpoint.

Faith-logic is applied in four steps:

1. RTF (Restoration to Fellowship)—If the believer is out of fellowship he uses I John 1:9 to recover the FHS (Filling of the Holy Spirit) and get back into a right relationship with God.

2. RIF (Resting in Faith)—the believer rests in faith, claiming a promise of God, such as Isa 41:10 – “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” This will allow you to regain objectivity and the ability to think clearly.

3. Apply biblical logic—the believer recalls epignosis doctrines that he has learned previously.

4. Come to a biblical conclusion—the believer uses these doctrines to reach biblical conclusions and regain control.

For an application of this let’s turn to Rom 8:28. We’ll look at verses 28-32. Here are the verses from the NIV:

v28. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

v29. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

v30. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

v31. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

v32. He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

All right, here’s an example of how this can be applied. Let’s say that some drastic thing has happened, perhaps a severe economic reversal, or a job loss, or some such thing that has caused you to become afraid. The first thing you must do is confess the sin of fear, and regain the FHS.

Secondly you claim a promise: Rom 8:28— And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Filled with the Holy Spirit you concentrate on that promise until you regain emotional stability and can think objectively.

Thirdly, you apply biblical logic. Rom 8:29-30: For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

God knew you in eternity past. He predestined you to be conformed to the image of Christ—He has a plan for your life. He called you to be a member of the Royal Family of Christ. He justified you—He imputed the very righteousness of Christ to you, and He can bless you in time because of that imputed righteousness. He glorified you—He will bless you in heaven.

Fourthly you come to a biblical conclusion. Rom 8:31, 32: What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

The facts in verses 29 and 30 say that God is for you. If this is true, who can be against you? God gave His Son to die on your behalf. Since He did this much greater thing, He will certainly bless you with all you need to have peace and stability, and yes, blessings in time.

And the blessings may not be what you had in mind, but because they’re from God, they’ll turn out to be infinitely better than anything you could have possibly imagined.

In this lesson we have discussed the function and the structure of human mentality in the perception of Biblical truth, and the role of the Holy Spirit in converting gnosis doctrine into epignosis doctrine. We saw how daily perception and application produce momentum and growth in the Christian life. And we have looked at how to use epignosis doctrine to create problem-solving techniques in applying God’s truth to life’s situations.

In our next lesson we’re going to take a look at what is perhaps the single most used—and misused tool in the believer’s tool belt: and that is prayer.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful that You have given us the means to understand what is foolishness to the unbelieving world—and that is the Mind of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank You for allowing us to understand these spiritual principles, which would otherwise be incomprehensible to us. We pray that You will take the things we have learned today and make them a source of blessing and challenge in our Christian lives, for we ask it in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.

TO THE READER:  If you have read this lesson, I would greatly appreciate any feedback, comments, or questions you may have.  Getting feedback from my readers is very helpful and encouraging to me.  I promise to respond to all legitimate questions or comments as appropriate.  But please, do keep your questions and comments appropriate and constructive.

Thank you very much.

In His Service,

John McReynolds

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