Psalm 105:4 was a favorite verse of Augustine. He cited it four times in his work on the Trinity. “Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his face always” (CSB).
For this reason, Robert Louis Wilken chose Seeking the Face of God as the subtitle for his book The Spirit of Early Christian Thought. Wilken believed this phrase, more than any other passage in the Bible, captured the spirit of early Christian pastors and theologians.
Revisiting Wilken’s work and the legacy left by the early Christians, I couldn’t help but wonder why it’s so easy for those who study the Bible or engage in the task of theological reflection to dismiss or downplay the desire to seek the face of God.
Ways We Approach the Bible
We can’t help but be shaped, at least in some measure, by Enlightenment rationalism and the tools of modernity.
We come to the biblical text and the task of theology with presuppositions about what we are to find in the sacred Scriptures, and our assumptions shape the goal and purpose for our study. Someone might think that our personal devotion should be cordoned off from our theological study; otherwise, we’d fail to be “objective” in the task.
And so, we approach the biblical text looking for our next sermon outline, or we study theology in hopes of passing the exam, or we peruse journals and book reviews so we can stay on top of current conversations in the academy.
Perhaps most Christians read the Bible to glean a little insight and inspiration for the day ahead, a morsel of wisdom to strengthen us in the life we’ve already chosen for ourselves.
How many of us consciously open the Scriptures or engage in the work of theology as a way of seeking the face of God himself?
Education and Exultation
On my shelf sits a commentary on the Gospel of Mark written by a solid, well-respected evangelical scholar, renowned for his work over decades of study. The bulk of it deals with questions of redaction criticism, textual variants, and the like—important issues to grapple with, certainly helpful for scholars who specialize in those fields. But somehow, lost in all the study, Mark’s portrait of Jesus receives little elaboration. Mark’s purpose in showing us Jesus seemed to run counter to the commentary, which focuses on everything else.
I heard John Piper once express his frustration with many commentaries: they rarely break out into song and worship. Education rarely connects to exultation. He writes,
“If education does not lead to exultation in God, it fails. If seeing glory doesn’t lead to savoring God, it fails. If thinking truth doesn’t lead to feeling love, it fails. Education, knowledge, sight, thought—they are all for exultation in God. And if they don’t produce it, they are not what they were created to be.”
To Know and Love Christ
Travel back to the time of the Puritans and the Reformation theologians, or go back further to the early church fathers and the writings of Augustine—yes, you’ll find head-scratching aspects of biblical exegesis, and yes, you’ll see these scholars engage the thought and philosophy of their times, sometimes poorly and sometimes well. But you’ll also feel how palpable their desire was to better understand the mystery of Christ, to honor and receive the treasure of the gospel, and to bask in its glory personally and corporately, hoping to shine as witnesses for the outside world.
The task of Christian theology isn’t one of invention or establishment; it’s about discovery and explanation. We’ve stumbled across something real, and as we behold with awe the wonders of this reality we seek to expound on it faithfully, trusting that what we’ve seen will change us. “We are changed into the one we see,” said Gregory the Great.
Wilken describes the task of early Christians:
“They wished not only to understand and express the dazzling truth they had seen in Christ, by thinking and writing they sought to know God more intimately and love him more ardently. The intellectual task was a spiritual undertaking.”
Seeking the God of the Scriptures
This desire for God, a hunger to know him and love him and adore him, pervades the early Christian writings. This desire propelled them deeper into the Scriptures. “For now treat the Scripture of God as the face of God,” wrote Augustine. “Melt in its presence.”
Augustine as the consummate pastor-theologian studied for the sake of his own soul and then sought to pass on the food he received. “I nourish you with what nourishes me,” he said. “I offer to you what I live on myself.”
Seeking the face of God helps protect us from pride, from seeing the Bible as a book to be mastered, or from assuming we have the last word on all things biblical or theological, as if it were possible to put an end to study. Augustine told his readers:
“Whenever you are as certain about something as I am go forward with me; whenever you hesitate, seek with me; whenever you discover that you have gone wrong come back to me; or if I have gone wrong, call me back to you. In this way we will travel along the street of love together as we make our way toward him of whom it is said, ‘Seek his face always.’”
At the end of his work on the Trinity, Augustine admitted he had argued and toiled in his pursuit of seeking God intellectually, but that work prompts further prayer:
“Give me the strength to seek you. . . . When we do attain to you, there will be an end to these many things which we say and do not attain, and you will remain one, yet all in all, and we shall say one thing praising you in unison, even ourselves also being made one in you.”
So, open your Bible, pick up a book of theology, and remember the ultimate goal: union with the one who has saved us. “Seek his face always.”
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