Never Let Up on Learning

Intro: The battle for our minds

“I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.”

Psalm 101:3

The old cliché from the early days of the computer – GIGO, garbage in/garbage out – is still true today. If you put bad data into a computer, you will get bad results out. If you put mental garbage into your mind, you will get garbage out in your life. 

Proverbs 15 says: 

“A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash.” 

Proverbs 15:14 (New Living Translation) 

That might be a good verse to write on a Post-it note and stick on your television. And remember that the next time you think about going to a movie.

Any nutritionist will tell you that there are three kinds of food for your physical body. There is brain food that makes you smarter (food that actually makes you smarter!). There is junk food, which is simple calories – it’s not poison, but it’s just empty calories. And then there are toxic foods, which are poison.

The same is true in what you see, what you hear, and what you allow into your mind. Some food is brain food. It will make you smarter, more godly, and more mature emotionally. Then there is junk food. There is so much you can fill your mind with that really is just stuffing. It is neither good nor bad, as 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, lawful but not helpful. In other words, some things aren’t necessarily wrong, but they aren’t necessary. 

The Bible tells us to fill our minds with the right things. If you want to be healthy and “successful” in the Christian life and in ministering to others, successful in your ministry, fix your mind on the right things.

By the way, some people say, “God hasn’t called me to be successful. He’s called me to be faithful.” That’s just not true. The Bible says God expects not only faithfulness but also fruitfulness. Trace it through Scriptures.

“I chose you… that you should go and bear fruit.” 

John 15:16

Jesus cursed a fig tree because it didn’t bear fruit (Matthew 21:19) – that’s how important fruitfulness is. Faithfulness is only half the equation. God expects fruitfulness as well.

Become a lifelong learner

Another battle for the mind is to never let up on learning. Become a lifelong learner. Love knowledge. Love wisdom. Learn to love the act of learning. The word disciple means “learner.” You cannot be a disciple of Christ without being a learner. Jesus said, 

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden [by the way, that sounds like a felt need!], and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.”

Matthew 11:28–29 

What do you do when you take on a yoke? You share a burden with another animal. You lighten a load. And Jesus wants us to learn from him.

Many people act as though their education ended at their last graduation. I have met some pastors who have not cracked a book since seminary. They have never studied anything else. They have never taken another class since finishing school. Are you kidding me? To be a disciple means to be a learner. All leaders must first be disciples. So leaders must first be learners. The moment you stop learning, you stop leading. Growing churches require growing pastors. The moment you stop growing, your church stops growing.

Humility needed

But if you are going to really learn, you need one quality in particular: humility. Why does God resist the proud and give grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5)? Because the humble are teachable. I would rather admit that I don’t know it all than to pretend that I know it all and not learn. You can learn from anybody.

“The mind of a smart person is eager to get knowledge [that’s a mark of intelligence!], and the wise person listens to learn more.”

Proverbs 18:15 (icb)

We need to be eager to learn and willing to listen. Learn this old cliché: “God gave us two ears and one mouth,” so we should listen twice as much as we speak. Proverbs says, 

“Wise men store up knowledge.”

Proverbs 10:14 (NIV)

In Scripture, knowledge is the only thing we are supposed to store up.

Jesus says we are not to store up money. Don’t store up treasure. Don’t store up material possessions where moth and rust decay. But store up knowledge because knowledge is far more important than money. You can always get more money, but knowledge is something you are going to take with you to heaven. You will leave all your material wealth behind, but a wealth of knowledge goes with you.

Suggestions for growing in knowledge

One of the ways you can store up knowledge is to start a family library – a godly family library – and leave it as a legacy to the next generation. In my family, four generations back gave their library to three generations back, who gave it to two generations back – my dad – who gave it to me. I began collecting books when I was sixteen years old. For many years, I read a book a day. Today I have over twenty thousand volumes in my library.

As a teenager I heard, “The impact on your life will be largely from the people you meet and the books you read.” So I decided to get very intentional about both of those – whom I would meet and what I would read. And when you begin to build a library of godly, Christian books, you are leaving a legacy for the next generation. Twice in the book of Proverbs we are told to “store up my commands within you” (Proverbs 2:1; 7:1 NIV). If you are going into eternity, you are going to take that with you.

If you’re serious about growing in knowledge and growing in your mind, here’s the approach I suggest:

• Read 25 percent of your books from the first fifteen hundred years of church history. So many people act like nothing happened between the times of Paul and Luther. God was at work all that time, and we are dismissing the God of the church to think that he was not having his Word faithfully taught during those times.
• Read 25 percent from the last five hundred years, since the Reformation.
• Read 25 percent from the last one hundred years.
• Read only 25 percent from contemporary authors of the last ten years.

A lot of people know all the contemporary books and none of the classics. Jesus did not just begin building his church in the year 2000. He has been working in and through his body for two millennia, and you can save yourself a lot of time if you will avail yourself of the whole tradition. It is wise to learn from experience, but it is wiser to learn from the experiences of others. It is also easier! It saves a lot of time and saves us from making the mistakes of others.

Read, Read, Read

I’m constantly reading. Every year I read through the complete works of a great thinker. In 2009 I read through twenty-six volumes of Jonathan Edwards. In 2010 I read through Church Dogmatics, the complete works of Karl Barth. I’ve read through John Wesley and through several other leaders. It is prideful to think that leaders from the past don’t have anything to teach us. There really is nothing new under the sun. If it’s held forth as new, then it’s not true, because truth is eternal. It was true a thousand years ago. It will be true a thousand years from now.

Truth is never invented; it is only discovered. And if God has shown it as truth, somebody else in the church has seen it before. In fact, if you ever come up with a truth that nobody else has ever seen, I can tell you this: you’re wrong. 

Proverbs says:

“Whoever gets sense loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will discover good.”

Proverbs 19:8 

We must make time to think. Plan it in your life. Strategize for a balance between doing and thinking. We need both of them in our lives.

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The article Never Let Up on Learning © by Rick Warren is excerpted from a presentation he gave to Christian leaders on The Battle for Your Mind: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God. Full article online at DesiringGod.org.

Top image credit: Photo of a man reading the Scriptures to learn wisdom, from © lightstock.com, stock image ID:  lightstock_105096. Used with permission.