Today we're learning about learning, looking at learning as a crucial part to the Christian life, lifelong learning specifically is what we're talking about today. The discipline is essential for local churches as well, so much so I'm reminded of APJ 1804, Pastor John, where you encouraged pastors to build a lifelong learning habit into their churches so that as God's people disperse out into the world after that Sunday gathering, when they go out into all their various professions and fields of influence, they can learn how to bring biblical truth to bear in the world at school, at work, without expecting the pastor to be the expert to answer all the ethical challenges that they will uniquely face in the world.

And so pastors are equippers getting their people ready to make wise and discerning decisions in their lives. And to do this well, it requires a congregation to learn how to learn on their own. For the next few weeks, we are going to focus on this discipline of lifelong learning, and we focus here because, well, it's an important theme, and we focus here because it's the theme of your brand new book titled "Foundations for Lifelong Learning, Education in Serious Joy." In this new book, as to be expected, Pastor John, you employ hundreds of Bible texts to make your points, over 500 citations throughout this little book.

But of the most frequently cited texts in this new book that I see include two texts that stand out, Matthew 13, 13 and Psalm 34, 8, texts that also factor prominently in your book, "Reading the Bible Supernaturally." So that leads me to ask this question. In your mind, how do these two books and these two different themes work together?

What are the similarities and what are the differences between talking about Bible study on one hand, in "Reading the Bible Supernaturally," and the purpose of education more broadly, which is the theme of "Foundations for Lifelong Learning"? How does the wise study of Scripture set the stage for us to be wise Christian students of all of life?

In your new book, you write a statement that really stood out to me. You said, "If we never observe the world through books, especially the book, we will be very limited in what we can know." Expand on that. Let me see if I can take all those threads. That's a lot of different threads.

And weave them into some kind of coherent fabric of an answer. So let's start with quoting those two passages. I mean, I found this really helpful the way you posed the question. It was really helpful for me to think on how the books relate and how those texts relate to the two books.

So let's start by quoting those two passages and relate them to the two books. Matthew 13, 13 says, Jesus says, "This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." And I'm pretty sure that the reason this text is a common question for our APJ listeners is because Jesus says he's actually aiming to conceal things by his parables from people who are resistant to truth.

A couple of verses later, he says, "This people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears." But then Jesus says to his disciples, "But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear." So the point is that there are two kinds of seeing.

Seeing they do not see. Seeing is one kind of seeing they do not see. That's another kind of seeing. Now, Psalm 34, 8, the other text you mentioned, gives the key to the difference between a seeing that sees and a seeing that does not see. It says, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good," which I take to mean that there is a seeing which is also a tasting of the goodness of God, and that tasting of the goodness of God is the other kind of seeing.

So some people read the story of the gospel of Christ. He dies for us. He rises triumphant. He reigns. And they see these facts. They see them. They see them. But they taste no goodness at all. These facts don't taste good and delightful and pleasing and satisfying. They don't taste anything pleasant.

Their spiritual taste buds are dead. The only kind of seeing they have is natural seeing, seeing with the eyes of the head, the mind, nothing supernatural, nothing spiritual, nothing from the Holy Spirit. But someone else reads the story of the gospel, and that person tastes the sweetness of it, the goodness of it.

They taste and see, and this is the second seeing. Paul calls it seeing with the eyes of the heart, Ephesians 1, 18. God has worked a miracle. He has made the taste buds of the soul alive. It's not nonsense to say taste and see. I mean, suppose I tell you this dessert is really rich, and you say, "Well, I'll take your word for it." And I say, "No, no, no.

Taste it." And you taste it, and you say, "Oh, I see." Now, that's not nonsense, right? You see. That's what happens when we hear the gospel and God makes our spiritual taste buds alive. We taste and say, "Oh, I see. This is wonderful." So now here's the connection between those two verses and the two books that you mentioned.

The new book is called Foundations for Lifelong Learning, subtitled Education in Serious Joy, and the older book, Reading the Bible Supernaturally. There are two main differences between the books. The new book, Foundations for Lifelong Learning, is built entirely and explicitly around six habits of mind and heart that form the foundations of lifelong learning or education.

But these habits are only assumed and implicit in the earlier book, Reading the Bible Supernaturally. That's one difference. So, assumed in the earlier book, made explicit, built around them in the second book. The other difference is that the newer book applies these six habits of mind and heart not just to the Bible, but to both of God's books, the Bible and the world.

So, Reading the Bible Supernaturally is about how to read the Bible, and Foundations for Lifelong Learning is about how to read the Bible and how to read the world. So, it's built around the question, what habits of mind and heart are necessary for lifelong learning from the world, learning from the world as well as from the Bible?

The six habits of mind and heart that form the foundation of lifelong learning are observation, understanding, evaluation, feeling, application, and expression. There's a chapter on each of those and how they are a, at least to my taste buds, a delicious challenge for a lifetime of learning from the Word and from the world.

This is what we try to do at Bethlehem College and Seminary, build these six habits of mind and heart into our students so they are catapulted into a lifetime of fruitful learning. That's what I hope is happening on every APJ as well. Now, the reason those two texts, Matthew 13, 13 and Psalm 34, 8 are relevant to these two books is that the problem of seeing but not seeing is a problem not only for what we see in the Bible, but also what we see in the world.

In other words, not only do people look at the gospel and fail to see the beauty of its reality, but people also look at the birds and the lilies and the ants digging in the ground and fail to see the beauty of the reality that God has designed for them to see and what He means to communicate.

Some people will say that if we would just study our Bibles more and more carefully, we wouldn't have to study the world. Now, not to put it too strongly, that's crazy. Not only because the Bible assumes on every page, I mean, virtually every page, the Bible assumes that we have looked at the world and learned from it so that we know what the Bible is talking about when it refers to vineyards, wine, weddings, lions, bears, horses, dogs, pigs, grasshoppers, constellations, businesses, wages, banks, fountains, rivers, fig trees, olive trees, thorns, wind, bread, armies, sword, shields, sheep, shepherds, cattle, camels, fire, green wood, dry wood, hay, stubble, jewels, gold, silver, law courts, judges, and advocates, for starters, right?

I mean, the Bible assumes we've got our eyes open and are looking carefully at the world and learning what things are and how they work and at society, that we have a great store of knowledge of things of the world when we come to the pages of Scripture. And not only that, not only does the Bible assume that we have paid close attention to the world that we live in, it commands us to go back to the world and learn.

Go to the aunt, you sluggard, like sluggard reading the Bible, go to the aunt and consider her ways and be wise, learn from her diligence, look at the birds of the air and learn how your father will take care of you, consider the lilies of the field and learn how your father will clothe you.

And the relevance of those texts, Matthew 13 and Psalm 34, is that millions of people seeing do not see when they look at the world. They see birds and lilies and ants and sunrises and stars, bright blasts of God's glory everywhere, and they don't see it. They don't see God, they don't see his glory and what he's revealing.

So the good effects of Bible seeing and world seeing go both directions. If you see the world accurately, you will bring a fund of knowledge to the Bible that will enable you to know many things, many of the kinds of things it's talking about. But even more importantly, and you picked up on this, Tony, in the last part of your question, even more importantly, if in reading the Bible, God gives us eyes to see the glory of Christ, to taste and see that he's good, then when we turn to the world and look with these new eyes, the birds and the lilies and the ants and the sunrises and the stars, they all have a new message.

They have a new glory. They show us something of God. So that's what I want for myself. That's what I want for our students at Bethlehem College and Seminary. That's what I want for everyone who reads this book. That's what I want every time you and I talk on this podcast for our listeners.

When we see the word and when we see the world, to really see, to taste and see that the Lord is good, the Lord is glorious. Yeah. Amen. Truly understanding the world in what it says of God is essential for comprehending the Bible better and vice versa, all leading to the delight of learning.

There's an essential feeling, an essential joyfulness that we aim at in all of our learning. I think, Pastor John, you're sort of getting at that. You're pushing in that direction towards the end of this episode, and I want to pick up on that theme next time. Thank you, Pastor John.

Thank you for joining us today. If you have a question for Pastor John, ask him. Type out your question as briefly as possible and email it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Monday, learning for joy. That's the theme next. See you then.

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