as one of my teachers at school recently put in his syllabus for one of my classes, "Gaining knowledge for mere pleasure or for knowledge sake is not enough; knowledge is meant to be applied."
when we were going over the syllabus and he said that, i had to stop and evaluate what i had been doing in college. have i been merely gaining knowledge for the sake of knowing more, or to actually apply what i learn in school to my life and ministry? as i thought about it, i quickly came to the conclusion that i have been doing both, for the last couple of years. there is knowledge that i simply do not care about, like in a concepts of math class, where i learned about different methods of counting votes, and there have been classes such as a history course (that i find very interesting), where i had to learn things and retain the knowledge to simply do well on a test. on the flip side, there are a great many of my classes that i find superb to generic math courses (courses for mathematically challenged people such as myself), where i have longed for more and more knowledge and wisdom from my professors, so that i could learn to excel more in my life and in my ministry.
to go along with that, i wonder how many people (the people that i am directing this to being professing christians), actually read their Bibles merely for knowledge sake, to score a good work with God, or to search for knowledge, wisdom, revelation, and truth, in order to apply it to their lives. many people i have overheard in conversations, and even people that i personally know, have said, "oh, you know, i usually turn to Bible when i am going through something difficult in my life..."
what i have to say to that is that the Bible IS the best place to turn in times of strife, mourning, grief, and depression, but it is not only time when we should be searching for knowledge. again i will say, it is either consciously or sub-consciously an effort for a person, in times of trouble, to turn to the Bible for knowledge, because they either want knowledge to apply to the situation they are in, or they want to read words that will make them "feel good." however, i believe that that MUST NOT be one's only motive for reading God's Word, or for worshipping Him.
God deserves our ALL, and we must strive to give that to Him. we must apply everything that procedes from the mouth of God to our lives. our every moment and movement needs to be directed towards worshipping and glorifying God. practicing of Christian disciplines is a must. meditation, prayer, fasting, serving, worship....these disciplines are all practices that as Christians, must be in our lives. to use James 2 as a guideline: one must fervently be striving for sanctification and righteousness. i don't, for a moment, think that it is my place to say that one is or is not saved, but as James puts it "what use is it, my brethren, if someone says that he has faith, but no works? Can that faith save him?" (james 2: 14) He continues on to say that faith without action is dead, being by itself.
to summarize, one must search for God's Wisdom, through mentors, studying His Word, Christian disciplines, and by actions. bread and butter, peanut butter and jelly, faith and actions, knowledge and application... these things go hand in hand with one another, and it is our calling to listen to God's Word and instruction and then to obey and carry out His Will...His good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12 and James 1: 17-18, 2: 8-26 were scriptures that i reflected upon before writing this blog.)
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2 comments:
Hey bud, great stuff... Here's a quote from a book I read last year,
“According to the Angelic Doctor, contemplation begins in love and ends in joy; it begins in the love of the object and the love of knowledge as an act of life; it ends in the joy of ideal possession and of the ecstasy it causes.” - A.G. Sertillanges
I love your insight Brennan. It's a blessing to have you as a lifetime buddy.
Isn't it crazy to observe the subtle attitudes we often adopt in our academic pursuits? To know God is to know truth, and we can not know truth if we do not act upon our knowledge. Too often, we view knowledge as an object for our own individual pleasure... But if we seek it as such, can we really say we know anything? The purpose of truth is to direct us in service to mankind... Too often we stifle what we think we know and puff ourselves up with delusional half-truths. It almost works as a pill, nothing more than another idol to worship for our own personal satisfaction. If God is simultaneously Truth and Love, how is it that we know truth but do not love? I think Scripture defines knowledge for us in two different ways... There is a sort of intermediate knowledge, which Paul speaks of in his explanation of general revelation, and there is an intimate knowledge that literally forms our being. If we are being sanctified, through Salvation and by His Truth, we will conform ourselves to the intimate knowledge that we have in Him. You're right. We can't know truth that is not applied.
I appreciate this post so much. It speaks right to me in something I am constantly struggling with: faith/actions, knowledge/application. You are right when you say that these things go hand in hand with one another. A book I read recently has really encouraged me in living a life of worship: "Wired: For a Life of Worship" by Louie Giglio and Stuart Hall. So many of us, including me too often, think of worship as singing in church on Sundays when it is so much more than that! This book will help anyone who wants to dig deeper into living worshipfully.
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