Our modern world is sometimes called the “Information Age”. We have more knowledge at our fingertips than ever before, just say “Hey Siri” or “Ok Google”. Our children can hardly imagine what it’s like to have to look something up in an encyclopedia, or stop and ask for directions, or just be content not knowing something that you can now so easily ask of the little device in your pocket. But knowledge isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
Sometimes we talk about “information overload” and “cutting through the noise”. Information may not be reliable – we have fact-checkers and fake news and your truth and my truth. People say it’s one thing to have knowledge, it’s another thing to have wisdom. And there’s some wisdom in that.
As Christians, let us ever turn to God’s Word for both knowledge and wisdom. And let us keep each in its proper place, and for its proper purpose. And let us consider, today, what God has made known to us in Christ, and be amazed at his teaching.
I think Messiah is one of the better-educated and, if you can say so, “smarter” congregations out there. We have doctors and engineers, and all manner of professional people, business owners and the like. We have, compared to many congregations, I believe, a solid theological foundation. We love and appreciate our history and our doctrine as Lutherans. We have a rigorous confirmation program and we run a classical school. Knowing things is important to us. Knowing the truth is highly valued here. But do we have a weakness?
Paul says that knowledge “puffs up”. In other words, we humans are often tempted to become prideful, in particular about our great trove of knowledge. This can work a number of ways.
We can become a little too puffed up in our knowledge, thinking we know better than we actually do. We can become stubborn and obstinate in a hardened position, which is not quite right. And our so-called-knowledge can lead us to pridefully close our ears to godly correction. I know better. I don’t need to be taught. This is a dangerous attitude.
Or, we can simply become prideful and puffed up in what we do know – even if we are right! And look down on others, despising God’s children who don’t know as much as we do. We can feel self-satisfied with our great knowing, as if it makes us better than others. Another dangerous, sinful, attitude.
Everything we know is by God’s grace. Everything we have been taught, that is true, is a gift from him. But whatever we know that is wrong, is confusion sown by our own flesh, the sinful world, or the devil and his minions. There are so many ways to go wrong when it comes to “knowledge”. For we sinners excel at going wrong.
In fact, knowledge itself was part of the first temptation to sin – that Adam and Eve would have the “knowledge” of good and evil. Well, they did learn a bitter lesson by their rebellion, a sort of knowledge I suppose. But it is a lesson we’d all prefer they never undertook to learn, a knowledge we’d all be better off if they had not known it.
And add to that, knowledge itself doesn’t save us. “Even the demons believe and shudder”, that is, the demons have the facts. The demon in our Gospel reading knew exactly who Jesus was, the Holy One of God. But such knowledge did him no Good. The devil knows God’s word, better than we humans, it is often said. But he hates God nonetheless.
And there are many today, even fancy-pants scholars with alphabets after their names, that “know a lot” about Christianity, and the Bible, and perhaps even about Jesus – but their knowledge gets them nowhere, because they have no wisdom, no love, no faith.
Knowledge and reason can even
become an impediment to faith if we make them the judge of God’s word. If we say, “oh, that can’t be Christ’s body
and blood in the sacrament, because it doesn’t make sense” or, “Baptism can’t
wash away sins or really do anything for you, because you have to be able to
understand!”
But who can plumb the mysteries of the Lord’s Supper? Who can understand it? That this bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood? We can only faithfully confess it to be what Jesus says it is.
Who can take Baptism apart and put it back together? Rather, we spend a whole lifetime learning its benefits, daily renewed by repentance and faith. These sacraments are not to be understood in the sense of knowledge, as if we are their masters. They are to be known and confessed as the blessed gifts that they are.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, Proverbs tells us, so let’s back up the truck and start there.
The first thing the Lord would have us know is our sin. Luther rightly begins his small catechism with the 10 Commandments. There we look and see a glaring mirror, showing us the many ways we fail to love God or our neighbor.
But he does not leave us with that knowledge only. He does not let us sit around in the sackcloth and ashes of repentance, the muck and mire of our own filth. He pulls us up and out and gives us a firm place to stand. He sends his Son, Jesus, to destroy the forces of evil, to teach us the Gospel of his kingdom, and to bestow on us the true knowledge and wisdom unto salvation.
Paul writes,
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:20-25)
And a little later,
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:1-2)
For the Christian, the most important thing to know is Jesus Christ and him crucified. And to know it, not as a fact or an intellectual exercise, but by faith.
Yes, we must know our sins, so that we know our need for Jesus. Yes, we should learn everything that he has commanded us, and keep it, indeed the whole counsel of God. Yes, we should always seek to learn more, know more, to grow in the knowledge of God just as young Jesus himself did.
We are not anti-intellectual. But we must never consider our own knowledge something to boast about, or consider ourselves above teaching and reproof. God’s word teaches humility, and that should include intellectual humility.
And so here it is, today. Know this, dear Christian. Though you sin daily and sin much, God loves you, and has sent his Son, Jesus, the Holy One of Israel. We preach Christ crucified – for you. He has come to destroy the powers of darkness. He has come to bring God’s love to bear on you, that you might be saved, and therefore also love your neighbor. He has not come to puff you up with knowledge, but to build you up with his love, for yourself, and for your brother.
Lord, let us consider what right
knowledge we have as a gift from you, and use it only, ever in faith. May we grow in the wisdom of your word, and
not in the wisdom of this world. Amaze
us with the teaching of Christ crucified for sinners, and let us always abide
in the knowledge of his salvation.
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