In preparing for a message that I gave last week on biblical aging, I came across some fascinating information regarding out nation’s preoccupation with youth. In essence, our society is obsessed with looking younger, but they are not just fighting wrinkle, they are trying to reverse the Fall.

Ever since Genesis 3, people have been aging, which ultimately leads to death. But people don’t want to look older and ultimately they don’t want to die. So, it wasn’t too surprising when I found out that a huge area of medicine today is in anti-aging medicine. In fact, there is a American Association of Anti-Aging Medicine.

These are the rules of anti-aging medicine:

• Don’t get sick
• Don’t get old
• Don’t die

They are advocating for people to put their hope in anti-aging medicine to reverse the effects of the Fall (i.e. aging and death). They say,

Medical knowledge doubles every 3.5 years or less. With these gains in medical knowledge, we will reach the point where we will know how to stop aging, put it on hold, and even eventually reset the clock mechanism of life itself.

With this philosophy as the background, here are a few of their suggestions for living longer:

• Avoid Trauma – Trauma kills more people between the ages of 1 and 44 than any other disease or illness: Nearly 100,000 people of all ages in the United States die from trauma each years, roughly half of them in automobile crashes. Trauma can strike at any time of the day.
• Reduce Stress – Reduce expectations. Reduce responsibilities. Share your feelings. Avoid arguments. Go easy with giving and receiving criticism.

These suggestions are just a few of the many listed, but they reveal what a Godless, man-centered worldview will lead you to. Man continues to rebel against his Creator and wants to control their own lives.

So this study has led to a few conclusions:

1. Our world is obsessed with fighting the consequences of the Fall.
2. Christians should not be pursuing youth, but old age. The Scriptures show old age as a blessing, even though there are hardships and physical limitations and pain that come with it. As a whole, the Christian community needs to respect the gray-headed with greater intentionality (Lev. 19:32; Proverbs 16:31, 20:29).

Maturity, Christ-likeness, and greater devotion to Christ are awaiting me in old age, so I press on to that end with that hope.

Often times, we can walk away from hearing the Word of God preached and think that we have applied it to our hearts. But what we have only walked away with is principles. The sermon ends and we walk out the door with only some good sounding principles that people should live by, rather than specific application to one’s heart.

I know I am guilty of this often. I ask the question: “How should people live?” or “What is a good suggestion to improve my spiritual life.” Rather than the question: “What do I need to change?” It is so easy to step out of a message and think that you heard a good message because there were some good things said, but never actually apply anything to your life.

If you read the Bible with any amount of frequency, I’m sure you’ve experienced this. You have come across a passage and asked, “Why did they do that?” or “What does that mean?”. Biblical culture shock happens when we read something in the Scriptures that has specific meaning to the culture in which it was written. For us today, reading about customs and practices that were common in biblical times can be shockingly confusing. Unless we try to understand those cultures, we will fail to understand the situation and misinterpret the meaning of the passage.

For example, it is confusing for us why food sacrificed to idols is a big deal in 1 Corinthians 8, unless we understand how young converts were saved from pagan religions where the food was offered to idols and then that meat could be purchased at a local market.

Or we would have a hard time understanding the significance of being thrown out of the synagogue in John 12:42, unless we understood the controlling centrality of the synagogue on Jewish life.

Biblical culture shock should happen all the time and should humble us into learning the ways of the new culture. If you have not been hit by the strangeness of the biblical culture, then you need to plug your brain in before your reading your Bible and then realize that you are in unfamiliar territory and ask God’s Spirit to help you navigate through it.

If we aren’t careful, we can tend to become familiar and slack when it comes to relating to the God of the Bible. There are many things which can lead to such sluggish apathy, but I think one catalyst to such an attitude comes from interacting with Scripture on a surface level. We read the Bible in our language and we know it is talking about a great God. But we take the blessing of God’s Word being readable and knowable and then we begin to think that God is kind of like us. This does not happen immediately, but subtly.

I know it sounds so blasphemous to say that we think God is like us, but I can feel the tendency. I begin to just assume that God is an English speaking God who relates on a human level. But God is so far above us and beyond us. In fact, He says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8,9) He is entirely NOT human and completely different. Paul Washer said, “He is not quantitatively bigger than us, He is qualitatively different from us.” In other words, He does not just do everything better than us and in a larger capacity, but He does things differently.

The reading of the words that have come from the mouth of God must lead us to small view of God because the words are understandable, but to a high view of God that worships and thanks Him for speaking to us.

Two weeks ago, I embarked on a journey to begin memorizing the New Testament. I first received the idea from an RD at Master’s. My roommate, Andrew, and I committed to a program of memorizing a chapter a week, starting with the book of Romans ([download the plan](/files/Memorize the NT.xls)). Today we start on chapter 3. At this rate, we will finish the New Testament in 5 years (260 chapters, 260 weeks). I know it sounds a little crazy, but I know I need it.

Over the years, I have become more and more familiar with the Bible. I can locate generally where things are found and can recite the idea of a particular verse. I have “memorized” all my life too. But this memorization has not been of my own choosing, but an assignment either for school, Awana, or church. I know the desired purpose of all those assignments was to really remember the verses for my own spiritual growth, I didn’t walk away meditating on the truth and wanting to know God better.

I know I need a vigorous memorizing plan like this because it will force we to interact with Scripture in the small spaces of my day. When I am driving in the car, waiting for someone to show up, or just walking around, I have time to whip out the small piece of paper and work on the next verse. In this, I turn my attention to the things of God more often. Already I’m seeing the fruit of this, but I need it more. I need it also because Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” If I want to fight against sin, then I need to be storing the word in my heart. Try to sin against God when you have Romans 1 on your mind.

If you don’t have any plan for locking God’s truth in your soul, I encourage you to do so. I doesn’t need to be a chapter a week, but it should be something you can meditate on and that will send your mind Godward when you are tempted to sin.