Bill of Goods
I hear it and read it all over the place. It's popular among a certain kind of hip evangelical writer and speaker. It's the idea, expressed in a hundred different ways, that the path to spiritual understanding is somehow tied in one way or another to my own self fulfillment or satisfaction. This is what's known in other contexts as "A Bill of Goods".
It's the easiest thing in the world to convince people that the path to spirituality is to think about themselves more. I mean, that's what we were probably going to do anyway: "Focus even more on myself? I can be more spiritually enlightened that way? Where do I sign?"
My feelings. My race. My appetites. My image. My...own...image.
This is Christianity expressed as a continuous stream of first-person pronouns.
In contrast to this psycho-therapeutic view of faith, what the bible actually says is everything a Christian needs for life and godliness is given "through the knowledge of Him who called us to glory and virtue". (2 Peter 1:3)
What we need for life and godliness doesn't come through self knowledge. It doesn't come from thinking about myself more. It doesn't come from thinking about my skin color more. It doesn't come from thinking about your skin color more. It doesn't come from thinking about my sexual appetites more. Or yours. It doesn't come from thinking about my self-worth more. It doesn't come from thinking about my appearance more.
Everything we need for life and godliness comes through a knowledge of Him.
Every. Single. Thing.