Bible Studies

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An Operational Explanation of Knowledge

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.


As a younger Christain I was always perplexed as to why God said it was the lack of knowledge that destroyed us. What about faith and obedience, those things seemed far more important... but knowledge? What's up with that? Here is an extremely important point; its not just that we haven't spiritual knowledge, but that we haven't the knowledge to know that we haven't the knowledge. Being ignorant of our ignorance is truly ignorant. We can be sitting ducks to an enemy that wars in realms that takes advantage of our spiritual unawareness. Thank God for His mercy, I personally have no idea how I made it past 10 years old!

What specifically has knowledge to do with my desruction? What is Satan getting by taking advantage of my lack of knowledge? What is it that is vulnerable?
Ecc 7:12 For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.
There it is, knowledge which is linked to wisdom, ( a discussion for a future article), gives life. There is the destructive aim of the enemy! Knowledge, spiritually speaking, is linked to life not just to what we live but the sustaining force within us.

We can take a deeper step by asking this question, what gives life to knowledge?
The answer to the question isn’t as complicated as it may seem, and is best answered in another question. If information being transferred as knowledge isn’t true, then is it knowledge?

John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. What we need to have is the knowledge of the truth. Doesn't sound all that complicated but look at this transcript from the movie Apollo 13 to see how difficult it may be to recognize:

Television Reporter: Is there a specific instance in an airplane emergency when you can recall fear?
Jim Lovell: Uh well, I'll tell ya, I remember this one time - I'm in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there's no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shrangri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my homing signal was gone... because somebody in Japan was actually using the same frequency. And so it was - it was leading me away from where I was supposed to be. And I'm lookin' down at a big, black ocean, so I flip on my map light, and then suddenly: zap. Everything shorts out right there in my cockpit. All my instruments are gone. My lights are gone. And I can't even tell now what my altitude is. I know I'm running out of fuel, so I'm thinking about ditching in the ocean. And I, I look down there, and then in the darkness there's this uh, there's this green trail. It's like a long carpet that's just laid out right beneath me. And it was the algae, right? It was that phosphorescent stuff that gets churned up in the wake of a big ship. And it was - it was - it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn't shorted out, there's no way I'd ever been able to see that. So uh, you, uh, never know... what... what events are to transpire to get you home.


What Captain Lovell determined would understandably aid him, lighting in the cockpit, was the very thing that needed to be removed for his salvation. The ability to accept deeper truths in our lives is foundationally laid in this attitude that will serve all of us well:

Even though it looks right, it feels right and some people are telling us its right, we just might be wrong in how we’re viewing this situation.

Our elevator in wisdom stops at the floor where we can no longer be told that our thoughts and consequent actions might be wrong. It could be a matter of life and death, destruction or freedom, foolishness or wisdom.

Proverbs 9:9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

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