Knowledge

I have been thinking recently: "Knowledge doesn't necessarily equate to understanding."

A pastor friend we met recently said to us, "nowhere in the Bible does it command us to 'study'."

I love to research, to study. I have a history degree, one of my favorite places to go is the library, reading about the American west, or the Civil War, World War II, or the middle ages. I just soak it up, I love to study. I think it drives Serenity nuts sometimes. When we travel, I do a lot of research, I don't want to drive 2 miles away from the coolest thing around and not see it, I want to know. I don't want to be ignorant.

But sometimes there is no amount of studying that will bring about understanding. Some things about God are just a mystery, we will never know until we see Him face to face, and even then we probably won't be able to understand the Great Mystery.

For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. - Romans 1:19

Paul states clearly that what we know about God isn't necessarily something we learned, it was placed in our hearts by God. When we earnestly seek His knowledge and an understanding of God, He will place it in our hearts what we need to understand.

What interests me is that the early churches, all of the epistles of Paul and others, none of those churches had a Bible, or even early manuscripts of most of what we call the "Bible". I guess they had the letters that where written to them, but outside of a handful of those and what we call today the Old Testament, most of the early believers didn't "study" like we Christians feel compelled to do today. Not that it is a bad thing. However, we get so caught up in doing our "quiet time" or study time, or Sunday "school" which obviously implies "study", that it stops being about an intimate relationship with Christ and becomes a bullet charted knowledge of a book. It isn't living and breathing and exciting.

While knowledge may make us feel important, it is love that really builds up the church. I Corinthians 8:1

Action, which is based in love, is what builds up the church, it is what will truly last, not a super-academia based understanding and knowledge of the spiritual facts of the Bible. That is not pure TRUTH. Ask God to reveal TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and UNDERSTANDING to you:

asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. Ephesians 1:17

So stop studying the bullet points and start applying the action of love to the people around you.

make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8