COMING
TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH
The divinely inspired and
experienced apostle Paul warns the young Christian Timothy (2 Timothy
3:1-7) about evil men who would operate under the disguise of
Christianity in the last days. In Paul’s warning he says they are
“ever learning, and never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Sounds like a
contradictory statement? Not if you understand the difference between
“learning” and the “knowledge of the truth.” Let’s look at
what might be the difference and see if we can come to the knowledge
of what Paul wanted Timothy to know.
Know someone that seems to be
really smart in some things but just can’t seem to get their life
together? Maybe they can make plenty of money but can’t manage it.
Maybe they have health but are ruining it. Maybe they have a big
family by marriage and birth but are driving them away. Maybe they
have talent and skill to affect people but are wasting their time on
material things and TV.
Do you see the point? There is a
difference between what a person has and what he does with it. Having
knowledge is different from coming to the knowledge of the truth
through experience. I can read chapters and memorize verses, but
that’s only getting facts into my head. Doing the word, experiencing
the word, feeling the word, trusting the word – that’s what puts
the word in my heart, so to speak, and brings me to the knowledge of
the truth.
For illustration let’s consider
three negative examples and one positive example:
Negative Example No. 1 – Cain
In Genesis 4:3-5,8 we read of
Cain offering a sacrifice of the “fruit of the ground” unto the
Lord. His brother, Abel, brought an offering of the flock. God had
respect unto Abel and his offering, but not to Cain. Why, does God
have something against vegetarians? No, just the unfaithful! Hebrews
11:4 tells us faith was the difference between Cain and Abel. By
observation we see that Cain knew what he was supposed to do (make an
offering), but he didn’t exercise the knowledge of how to feel
(offer by faith). This lack of feeling carried over to his social life
with Abel, also (Cain killed him).
Negative Example No. 2 – Aaron
In Exodus 32:1-5 we read of
Aaron, Moses’ brother, who had a lapse between what he knew and what
he understood to do. This is the same Aaron who was Moses’
mouthpiece before Pharaoh (Exodus 4:16) and the father of the priests
(Exodus 40:12-15). But when Moses “delayed to come down” from the
mount where he received the Ten Commandments, the people became
restless and demanded that Aaron do something. So he took their
earrings, made a molten calf, proclaimed it a god and the next day a
feast. Moses and God were very unhappy with this. So we see that Aaron
knew enough that God needed to be worshipped, but he didn’t exercise
the knowledge of how to do it right.
Negative Example No 3. –
Jesus’ disciples
Matthew 10:1 tells us that Jesus
gave his disciples power over “all
manner of sickness and…disease,” but in Matthew 17:15-20 a man
brought his lunatic son to Jesus because the disciples had not been
able to heal him. Jesus healed the boy and later explained to the
disciples that they could not heal the boy “because
of your unbelief.” They knew they had power, but they didn’t
understand just how much power they had! Just like Cain and Aaron,
they didn’t exercise the knowledge of the truth.
A positive example – David
In I Samuel 17 we find
Israel
’s army pitched on one mountain and the Philistines pitched on
another mountain and a valley between them. The Philistine’s
champion, Goliath, is challenging
Israel
to send their champion to fight. Jesse sent his youngest son, David,
with corn, bread, and cheese to the battle to see how David’s oldest
three brothers were doing. When David saw the army of
Israel
being bluffed by Goliath, he told King Saul that he would go and
fight Goliath.
Saul tried to discourage David,
saying he was just a youth. But David’s answer in v. 34-37 is a
classic example of one that has had prior success following God, with
that past success leading to a sense of being successful in the
future. David relayed to Saul how the Lord had been with David to
defeat a lion and a bear that were attacking David’s sheep. David
knew the Lord was with him against those beasts, and the Lord would be
with him against this “uncircumcised
Philistine” too. What courage! But it came from the knowledge of
his past successful experience with God’s strength. This is exactly
the kind of knowledge we need to exercise, the kind of knowledge that
affects our actions toward God’s purposes. I hope you have already
experienced some success in your life by doing something in God’s
strength and not your own. It will surely prepare you for what lies
ahead in your life. If not, then I hope that very soon you will face a
difficulty too great for you to face on your own, one so great that
the only one that can help you is God. Your life will be changed from
that moment, and you will live life with the bravery of David and not
the doubt of David’s three older brothers.
The Steps to Coming to Knowledge
These
examples illustrate what I think it means to come to the knowledge of
the truth. But can we break down the learning process into steps, and
will it help us to experience the knowledge? Yes, on both parts. I
believe the process can be described, in very simple terms, in four
steps. They are:
·
Education
·
Meditation
·
Participation
·
Evaluation
First consider education. This
involves getting facts into our heads. This gives a legitimate
foundation of reason to the other steps. If we don’t recognize
education as the first step, then we’re saying we could experience
the knowledge of the truth by accident, and we know that no one
is accidentally going to please God and gain heaven.
The next step is meditation. This
is the link between what we think and what we do. Do you know a
professed Christian that can’t/won’t pay his bills (there are many
other examples)? Then you know someone that has a broken link – the
link between what they know to do and what they actually do.
Meditation is that broken link. God expects me to read a truth from a
2,000+ year old book and make it shape my life now, in 2007. That
takes meditation! I must read what Jesus said about a pearl (Matthew
13:45,46), or a piece of silver (Luke 15:8-10), or a bad seed (Matthew
13:24-30) and meditate on it to see how it can change my life. I did,
and it is. How about you?
The third step is participation.
This means we must do something. Christianity, like life, is
not a spectator sport. It is meant to be enjoyed, embraced, and
experienced by all our senses. Christianity is something we must do
to appreciate. How do we know a thing works unless we make it work
ourselves? OK, I know someone else can tell you a thing will
work, but you cannot be sure unless you see/use it for yourself. And
Christianity is certainly something that cannot be experienced second
hand! It is above all things a most personal experience. Not even your
spouse, your “one-flesh” partner, can do Christianity for you,
though some do try and some do try to let them.
The fourth and final step is
evaluation. This is when we look back on our actions and ask
ourselves, “Did Christianity work for me? Was my reply what it
should have been? Did I respond as Jesus would have?” This is the
step where we evaluate how well we performed the first three steps. If
we can say we handled ourselves as Jesus would have in a given
situation, then we have come to the knowledge of the truth. But if we
didn’t, then it is time to go back to education, meditation, and
participation in a different way and keep on repeating until we get it
right!
Anything less is to say the
scriptures don’t work. I don’t think we want to settle for that
conclusion. So please, consider this description of the learning
process and master each step completely so that we can truly come to
the knowledge of God’s wonderful saving truth.
Bill Prince Jr.
Oxford,
AL
