Back in Ugandan Primary School my science teacher often labored to explain a plant development term I have never forgotten.

Osmosis.

The definition often went something like this, Osmosis is the movement of water or other solvent through a region of low concentration to a region of high concentration. Osmosis is passive transport, meaning it does not require energy to be applied.

My Science teacher now has to forgive me for reminding myself of the exact meaning through Wikipedia, but that is the state of things.

Worse still, this is the state of things among many of us Ugandan Christians, as we think about our spiritual development.

Like Osmosis, it’s passive.

We assume because we were “raised this way,” pronounced a certain set of words years back, never sat on a prison bus (ofcourse), we are safe, well, maybe a few Sundays at church, some Christian radio and Bible inspiration when we are “low” and hell-fire insurance is guaranteed.

The scriptures are violent against such assumption, in fact, the writer of Ephesians, having earlier spoken of Christian identity in chapters 1-3 sees the Christian life sustained amidst “warfare. ”  He knows Christians are called to know who they have believed,(2 Tim 1:12) He knows the church’s great commission is a teaching commission, go make disciples, teaching them to obey.  (Matt 28:20)

Yet we think of a rigorous spiritually disciplined life as the kind reserved for theologians, as if we are not, we forget that if “theos” means “God” and “logos” means “study”, everybody studies God, just that– others study him well and others, terribly.

The writer of first Peter too, having outlined the outcomes of a non-passive Christian life to include pursuits of virtue, godliness, among others, remarkably states that passive Christianity does one thing to you, it keeps you from being “spiritually ineffective..” (2 Pet 1:8)

And as we see in history, everyone that remained passive in their pursuit of revealed truth was tempted by versions of self-salvation, the Galatians moved into circumcision, the Colossians, holy days and feasts. Today’s Christians? Motivation, hype, dreams, and interpretations, what else?

In fact, I warn you, when you pursue this journey of knowing him through his word which is able to “build you up”  (Acts 20:32) you’ll encounter opposition that sounds something like this,

Theology-is-bad-for-you, you-need-to-know-God –without-the- burdens-of -overthinking- him-what-the-church0-needs-today-is- a-demonstration-of-power-and-miracles-as exhibited in the early-church, therefore-put-away-your Bible- and-just-listen-to- the-spirit. Let- go-and- let God.

Now, there is a grain of truth in this, knowledge can puff up(1 Cor 8:1), we can be so blinded in our knowledge and literature that we close off the most important thing of all – love.

But worst of all, backed by the spirit of the age, we can be so naive against “flaming arrows” (Eph 6:16) we can be so in touch with our feelings and begin to think it is God speaking yet our fallen self is.

We can so easily forget that the serpent’s appeal to Adam and Eve in Gen 3:1  was an appeal to self and a denigration of what God had spoken. That’s how brokenness began and that’s how brokenness continues.

If you are going to stand as a Christian in any age, what God has revealed in words better be your only standard of faith and practice.

When Paul warns Timothy about people with itching ears in the final days. He also adds that as a characteristic, they will “pile up teachers” (2 Tim 3:4) who say what they want to hear.

In other words, having failed to endure sound doctrine. they pile up different dispensers of different words they prefer to hear, having rejected revealed truth, they resort to a different kind of hearing this is what teachers do, make people hear words. And where eternal words are not, the vacuum is swiftly filled.

Quite absurd but this is the main characteristic among many of us Ugandan believers, we quote our Pastor faster than we quote our Bibles, we are hungry for motivation more than we are hungry for reproof, we want our thinking caressed, not corrected. Our measurement of God’s word as profitable is only economic.

And this is where the enemy would like us to be.  Believing that the scriptures are peripheral to our Christian experience, or even believing they are not, but living as if they are.

God cannot be known fully, but he has made a way to be known truly (John 17:17) Therefore. If good theology is the study of God in his word, do you know what you believe? Or do you hope things will happen by osmosis?.