Learning and Knowing

John 8:32

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 TAKS test, right, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and 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.