Jen Wilkin is an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. She is the author of a number of books and Bible studies including her newest studies, God of Creation and God of Covenant, Women of the Word, and 1 Peter: A Living Hope in Christ.
The following is a segment from her 1 Peter Bible study.
Learn more about 1 Peter: A Living Hope in Christ here.
The entire video is above and the full transcript is below.
I am someone who feels very deeply when I read the Scriptures. And if you’ve spent anytime in any of my studies, you know that I get all teary sometimes when I read. I hate it. I asked the Lord to take it away, and He didn’t. If anything, it has gotten worse with the passage of time.
We should absolutely feel deeply when we read the Scriptures, but many times we, as women, tend to bring our emotions to the Scripture before we bring our intellect. Women have an intellect that is intended to love God. That means we should be thinkers.
The way that I try to explain this is to say, “The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.” So we must first know what is true about God before we can truly say that we love Him.
So many women that I meet say, “I want to feel more deeply for God. And I don’t know, I feel like I’ve lost the feelings that I had at one time. How can I get those feelings back?” And my answer is always – if you chase the feelings you’re gonna have trouble.
But the thing with God is “to know Him is to love Him” has never been more true of anyone than it is of Him. And the more that we see His nature and character expand and bloom through the study of the Scriptures, the more we come to love Him for who He proclaims Himself to be.
But we start with our minds.
