The Mistake of 3rd Person Theology

I hope this makes you pause as it did me.

"The man who studies theology. . . might watch carefully whether he increasingly does not think in the third rather than in the second person. You know what I mean by that. The transition from one to the other level of thought, from a personal relationship with God to a merely technical reference, usually is exactly synchronized with the moment I no longer can read the word of Holy Scripture as a word to me, but only as the object of exegetical endeavors. . . . Consider the first time someone spoke of God in the third person and therefore no longer with God but about God was the very moment when the question resounded, 'Did God really say?' (cf. Genesis 3:1). This fact ought to make us think."

Helmut Thielecke, A Little Exercise for Young Theologians. (Found in Effective Bible Teaching by Jim Wilhoit and Leland Ryken.)