Informed and dead, or formed and transformed?

Trying to live a life informed by scripture will likely end in a disappointing wreck.

Wait, don’t a lot of preachers teach that our thinking and decisions should be informed by scripture?

Yes, and it’s not quite a fully accurate picture of what we need to pursue.

For many,  to be “informed” by scripture is to have the Word of God be yet another external source from which we are “informed.” That’s certainly not God’s idea, nor the intent of scripture that we see described in the Bible. The Apostle Paul gave definition to the goal when writing to the Galatians:

“Oh, my dear children! I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives,” Galatians 4:19.

The goal Paul gives isn’t one of a person simply being “informed” by scripture; a little information does not result in a life’s transformation. Rather, it’s of one where the Living Word of God (Jesus) fully envelops the life, and is fully formed within the believer, or as Paul put it “… until Christ is fully developed in your lives.”

To be “informed” by the Word of God is to have some knowledge which we may — or may not — use, or use correctly; but to have the Living Word of God fully “formed” within us is to experience transformation.

We need to do more than simply be informed by the Word, but to be formed and transformed by it.

Scotty