Attaining scripture means attaining the internality of scripture, meaning attaining that which scripture talks about, changing our internal qualities from personal selfishness (seeking to benefit ourselves) to mutual bestowal (seeking to benefit others).
Here's an example:
- The purpose of a car is to get a person from point A to point B.
- Knowing the detailed technical specifications of a car isn't the same thing as driving a car from point A to point B:
- A person can know the detailed technical specifications of a car without actually knowing how to drive a car.
- A person can drive a car from Point A to point B without knowing the detailed technical specifications of a car.
- So generally speaking, it's more important to know how to drive a car than it is to know the detailed technical specifications of a car because ultimately the purpose of a car is to get a person from point A to point B.
- (For simplicity's sake, this isn't taking into account that engineers and mechanics need to know the detailed technical specifications of a car to keep it running properly so it can take a person from point A to point B.)
The same is true for scripture:
- The purpose of scripture is to get a person from personal selfishness (seeking to benefit oneself) to mutual bestowal (seeking to benefit others), from one internal quality to another, until we become similar to God in quality.
- Knowing the detailed technical specifications of scripture isn't the same thing as attaining scripture and changing from selfishness to bestowal.
- A person can know the detailed technical specifications of scripture without attaining scripture, without changing from selfishness to bestowal.
- A person can attain scripture and change from selfishness to bestowal without knowing the detailed technical specifications of scripture.
- So generally speaking, it's more important to attain scripture than it is to know the detailed technical specifications of scripture because ultimately the purpose of scripture is to get a person from selfishness to bestowal.
Remember, only God can change our internal qualities from selfishness to bestowal. Ask Him to help you and He will.
In everything we do, we should seek to benefit others instead of ourselves.
Copyright © 2014, Carter Kagume. All Rights Reserved.
