Most Christians are spiritually retarded. Now I do not mean this in the medical sense. I do not mean they have an actual mental disability. And I certainly would not want to hurt the delicate sensibilities of anyone who finds that word “offensive”. What I mean is that literally, Christians are retarded. They are delayed. Their understanding is far behind where it should be given the amount of time they have invested in the church and religion.
You can easily test this for yourself. Go to any random church member and ask them basic Bible questions.
“In the Bible, where can I find the qualifications for an elder?”
“Where is the story of David and Goliath Located?”.
“Where is the sermon on the mount?”
“What are the rules for marriage and divorce?”
“What Does Christ say about worry?”
Now you may not be able to answer these questions yourself, which should give you a hint as to where you are in your development. But the most concerning fact in the spiritual retardation of Christians is the fact that they are doing nothing to improve themselves. Not only are they retarded, but they are content to remain retarded. They are content to sit in a pew week after week and learn next to nothing. They are content to change next to nothing about their lifestyle. And they are perfectly happy just floating along in a stream of contentment and emotionalism for their entire Christian life.
I am pro-contentment. But we should never be content about where we are in our spiritual development.
We should never be content without our current level of spiritual maturity. Most people are happy right where they are so they never improve. They use the godly admonition of contentment as an excuse to justify sitting back and doing nothing about themselves. This is human nature, but it is also Christian nature. The days of the protestant work ethic and have died and been buried. Now Christians sit around and try to find any biblical backing for a lethargic lifestyle.
They attack money as “the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) so they can justify not working hard on their careers. They attack the physically fit because “bodily exercise profits little” (1 Timothy 4:8) as an excuse to never improve their bodies. And they use contentment as an excuse to never push their own physical and mental limitations. Christians are always looking for an easy excuse to avoid some sort of labor, especially the labor of thinking.
Christians have done the same thing with their spiritual growth. Instead of constantly working to improve themselves, most people are content knowing that God will forgive them or that His grace will cover them. So they never do anything to grow or improve. Why should they?
Really, at the end of the day, there is no external incentive for learning more about God. Or perhaps there is an incentive, but we never talk about it in the church. Because people might get angry if you suggest they need to work and improve their spiritual knowledge.
There is also no negative motivation; nothing for Christians to run away from.
We do not call each other out for a lack of knowledge anymore. If someone knows nothing about the Bible, he can live his entire Christian life without anyone ever knowing. He will never be asked to teach a class. He will never discuss any spiritual matters inside or outside of the classroom. When it comes to conversion, he will be unable to articulate the “reason for the hope that is within him” (1 Peter 3:15). But he can live this way for decades because no one will ever ask him to demonstrate his knowledge (or the lack thereof). No one will ever ask him to prove himself as a Christain man and demonstrate what he knows and the knowledge he has gained over the years. He knows this and he is content with this, so there is no need for the common man to improve.
The common man sits content in the church pew maintaining (or rather decaying) his own spirituality. This is an epidemic in the church and something must be done about it.
Solutions
Require knowledge demonstrations in the church. When kids are given standardized exams in the feminine-dominated, state-sponsored indoctrination camps known as public schools, no one bats an eye. Everyone knows that tests, while inadequate in many ways, is a decent way to test the knowledge and understanding that kids have about a particular subject. Why not have something similar for the church?
It would not even have to be a test of a public nature. But there could be exams provided that test the knowledge of Christian about different areas of the Christian lifestyle. This could include basic Bible knowledge, topical knowledge, apologetics, etc. Anything that comes to mind can be tested. And we know from research that testing, or forcing the mind to recall information to articulate it to someone else is one of the best possible ways of increasing knowledge. We learn when we recall. We learn when we explain a concept to someone else.
These tests would not even have to be public in nature, though that may be useful since most people would not take advantage of the tool without some sort of pain to run away from. The hardcore among you could require test scores to be made public. Or oral examinations could be used. Anything Is better than sitting on our rear ends doing nothing, as we commonly do these days.
Create groups of men who test each other’s knowledge through questioning.
Every man should be able to clearly articulate and defend his own faith. But how many men do you know of who are able to do that? I know of only a handful in each congregation.
But when men are forced to do combat in the secular world, this is exactly how that combat will look. When you discuss something of a spiritual nature with a person of the world, you are forced to articulate your point to them in a convincing manner. If you cannot articulate it, you look like an idiot.
The Christian who cannot articulate the reason for the hope that is within him is spiritually retarded.
All training should look exactly like the situation you are training for. If real-world combat requires a man to give an articulate description of why he believes what he believes, then a man should train for that event. A man should plan what he will say and how he will say it when he is approached with any of the common questions of a worldly person.
Can you clearly articulate your faith? Can I clearly articulate mine? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves. And if the answer to that is “no”, we need to accept that in our current position, we are spiritually related and in desperate need to improve.
Do not sit idly by, whittling away the hours and days of your life without making any progress towards your goals. Do not be idle and make no progress on your spiritual progress. Never use your Christianity as an excuse to be lazy. Most men do this, and you have a responsibility to be unlike most men.
Conduct yourselves like men.
