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by Jason Miller, Teaching Pastor

C.S. Lewis says it’s a good idea to read old books. He says every age sees certain truths and makes certain mistakes. Whether you’re a Christian or atheist or anything else, to be part of any given age is to share certain blind spots, and one of the best ways to see what you’re blind to is to read things from other ages, when they saw other things.

He wrote that in his introduction to some of Athanasius’ writings, one of the guys who was a part of the early Church (4th century). Athanasius did a lot of work to help the Church think about the Trinity, among other things, and I spent some time last summer reading his and other writings on the topic. And just like Lewis promised, I discovered a blind spot in my vision.

When we talk about our relationship with Christ today, we usually say that He is in us. We invite Jesus into our hearts. We have Christ in us. God is in our lives, etc., etc. And that’s fair because you can find language about Christ being in us in the Bible.

But there’s other language in the Bible that we don’t seem to use as much, and it’s the preferred language for guys like Athanasius.

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by Jason Miller, Teaching Pastor

I'm beginning to think that mastery is a myth. Or at least that the idea of mastery is tied to a myth or two that aren't helping us. 

This has been on my mind because I'm nearing the completion of a master's degree in theology, and I will in no way be a master of theology. I know more than I did when I began the degree program several years ago. But mostly I know, now more than ever, how little I know. It's more than humbling. It's annoying. 

I do think there is such a thing as mastery (although in fields like theology, I'm not sure how one ever attains an objective sense that they've achieved it). That's not the myth. Malcolm Gladwell says 10,000 hours of practice can make you a master at something, so I suppose practicing an hour a day, everyday, for 27 years, could make you a master. Rather, the idea of mastery leads us to a couple of other myths: we're all too likely to think we're a master when we're not, and we're all too likely to think we need to be a master when we don't.

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