This Week |
#39 (5-30-04)
Learning and Knowing
One thing I know is that we don’t
learn much, from a Spiritual perspective, on a regular basis. What we
know, compared with what we ought to know, is frightening. Lots of us talk
a bit of Truth, but fail to live out the great depths of Truth because
they are a miniscule part of our overall knowledge base.
Jesus said, in John 8:32, you shall
know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free. But the nagging
question remains, what do we know, and are we in the process of learning?
How could anyone sit for years in a Bible
Class or under the rhetoric and influence of someone gifted by God for
proclamation of the Truth, and remain unlearned about those things that
bring genuine freedom to the soul, and to the mind, and to the body? How
can we go on year after year with the Word of God in our hands and the
Spirit of God in our innermost being and remain unknowing?
Let’s imagine for a moment that there was
a GASK test (you’ve heard of the TAAS test, right, the Texas
Assessment of Academic Skills, the one we give to public school children
to make sure the teachers are not sleeping in class?). Well this one is
God’s Assessment of Spiritual Knowledge, and let’s pretend that you
have to pass it to get to Heaven (bet you’re getting more excited about
GRACE even as you read this). No one is sure exactly what the questions
will be, but some will come from Luke and John, and some will come from
Zephaniah and 2 Chronicles as well as other books we can’t find without
the index. One part of the test requires a written thesis, and though you
won’t know the specific subject matter in advance, it will revolve around
some aspect of Soteriology, Pneumatology, or Ecclesiology with a
particular emphasis on Scriptural Doctrine viewed dispensationally.
Not to worry! I’m sure there is not going
to be a test. . .no, I’m really sure. . .I mean we couldn’t have missed
that, right?
The reality is that we
place less emphasis on Truth in our lives than we do knowledge about the
goings on in this world. We spend more time with the TV than with the
Scripture, and more time talking on the phone than communicating with God.
Rather than learn and know, we hear and forget. Rather than concentrate
and consecrate, we play church and pretend. Rather than commit and capture
the mind of Christ, we escape and relax.
Of course that’s just my opinion. I could
be wrong.
© Weaver 2004