About Me
- Joe Garrison
- Fishers, IN, United States
Director of Contemporary Worship and Assistant Director of Student Ministries at Castleton United Methodist Church in Indianapols, IN. Husband,Guitarist,and Drummer
Thursday, September 30, 2010
When Do We Take Knowledge Too Far?
For the last month now I have been teaching a group of high school students in our Phao Student Ministries the book of Proverbs as part of our semester long series "WISE UP! Study of Proverbs" on Wednesday nights. If you've ever read Proverbs you know that the book is focused on searching for and gaining wisdom and knowledge of God.I consistently have been hitting on how discipline in studying scripture and a focus on searching for wisdom and knowledge in many different areas of life can bring us closer to God. The writer of Proverbs is clear, wisdom can be found in many different places, not just church and Scripture, although Scripture should be our main focus.
As I am teaching the book of Proverbs to the high school students I am also leading a discussion with some young adults once a week on the book of Colossians. In Colossians, Paul is specifically writing to combat the Gnostics who believe that the only way to God is through knowledge. The body and flesh and anything created (actually including the incarnation of Jesus) is sinful and bad.
It's kind of a weird spot that I'm in. On one night I'm pounding home the need for wisdom and knowledge and a desire to study not only Scripture but study in school as well. On another night we are hearing about Paul's battle against the Gnostics in Colossae and their over emphasis on knowledge.
Obviously there has to be a middle ground or balance, right? So what do you think that is? Where is the balance between our desire to gain knowledge of God, and the wisdom of God, while not putting too much of an emphasis on those things, and still having a faith that goes beyond knowledge and isn't based on our limited ability to understand God?
Just something I'm thinking about. I would love to hear your thoughts!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I think gaining the knowledge and wisdom of God has to be done within the context of the fact that we will absolutely never fully know or even come close to knowing or understanding the knowledge and wisdom of God. If we keep this fact in mind and remain humble in our quest to know God more then we can seek his knowledge and wisdom all day long. And we can do this without worrying about our desire for knowledge surpassing the strength of our faith because our faith and our desire for knowledge are based of the exact same thing...the fact that we are incomprehensibly inferior to an all-powerful God who created the entire universe.
Andrew, Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!
You're right, we can seek the knowledge and wisdom of God all we want, to any extent we want, as long as we know that as much knowledge and wisdom we might gain along the way, we will never be 100%. Only God has complete wisdom and knowledge.
We have to understand where wisdom and knowledge come from. If we focus so much on knowledge and forget about Christ, our search for knowledge is pointless. It's through that faith in Christ that God allows us to gain wisdom.
Thanks for stopping by! Hope to hear from you again soon.
This is Meadows btw...
In that case, EXTRA thanks for stopping by! haha.
We're missin you and your little lady out here. Has it been 18 months yet?
Haha we haven't quite hit 18 months yet.
Post a Comment