Spiritual Depth: The Benefit & Danger

The 1st Basic Dynamic of Spiritual Growth

This is the second article in my series “Spiritual Adulting: Becoming Responsible and Going Deep”, which will continue throughout the month.

During seminary, those seeking ordination in the Presbyterian Church USA take what is called the Bible Content Exam. It's a multiple-choice test designed to test one’s familiarity with the biblical texts. 

This is an incredibly stressful time for seminary students. They spend many hours reading and taking practice exams. The bottom line is that if you do not pass it in three tries, you are out.

Sometime after I took the test, I found myself sitting in front of my Committee on Preparation for Ministry for a regularly scheduled meeting. They pointed out that I had attained the highest score in the presbytery within the last 6 years.

This was the fruit of my short stint as a fundamentalist who immersed himself in the Bible, even to the point of practically memorizing passages. As you can see, that fundamentalist phase served me very well. My knowledge of the biblical texts ran quite deep.

But, during my time in the fundamentalist mindset, my capacity for complex processing of that information was extremely narrow. 

Spiritual growth requires a combination of two dynamics: depth and breadth. Another way to think about it is expertise and maturity.