“Informed” It is difficult to overestimate the value of experience as a teacher. A student can read a text, but to learn it, he must apply the knowledge gained to exercises related to what he has read. However, just as reading apart from experience does not complete the learning process, neither does experience apart from (verbal) instruction. In fact, experience is often a slow, inefficient, and painful means of learning. Rather, experience complements instruction with emotional and motive elements. Experience illustrates, influences, and reinforces. A child might be told not to touch a hot stove. If he ignores the warning, he will be inflicted with pain so memorable that he will likely never touch it again. Nevertheless, his suffering told him nothing the warning did not, nor did it alter his behavior in any way the warning alone, had it been heeded, could not have. Yet, his suffering made his knowledge practical, so that he will be very careful to avoid such a painful experience in the future. Perhaps the fact that Adam had never experienced death led him to take God’s command lightly and eat the forbidden fruit. However, he did not need to experience death to know he ought to obey God. All that was required for him to avoid death was obedience to God’s words (Gen. 2, 3). The Bible asserts that the natural realm argues incontestably for God’s existence (Rom. 1:18-20). Yet, while the experience of the beauty and wonder of a tree informs a person that God exists, it cannot tell him God’s will for him. Thus, nature is an excellent example of how experience and revelation work together to teach people what they need to know about God. Despite this, experience is often elevated above God’s revelation. It is now voguish to speak of being “informed” by experience. Of the late liberal theologian, Krister Stendahl, it was said that “his illness informed his later reading of religious texts … .” What this really means is that it warped and biased his interpretation of the Bible and, thus, actually left him disinformed as to its meaning. While experiences, such as illness, can bring a greater appreciation of the Bible, they cannot change its meaning. A quote from Stendahl shows how his experiences “informed” him: “‘The Christian Bible includes sayings that have caused much pain, both to Jews and to women. Thus I have felt called to seek forms of interpretation which can counteract such undesirable side effects of the Holy Scriptures’” (Biblical Archaeology Review, Sept./Oct. 2008, pg. 16). It is good to “feel” what the Bible says, but that certainly begins with “knowing” what it says and just as certainly does not redefine and override what it says. Only God’s word is capable of informing, or “forming in,” one’s mind the right conception of His will. Unless he gives priority to the Bible, and vigorously resists the urge to displace it with experience, he will distort its meaning and nullify it as a source of information. Though Paul’s sickness introduced him to the Galatians, he converted them, not by urging them to heed their experiences, but by revealing God’s word to them: “but you know that it was because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time” (Gal. 4:13). Subsequent to their conversion, false teachers “deformed” their conception of the gospel: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (1:6-8). As a result, he had to form Christ in them again. Yet, the means by which he did so was surely no different the next time than it was the first time. Experiences might drive a person’s life, but only the word of God should steer it.

“My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you —” (Gal. 4:19)