I know some very intelligent people who are dumb as a box of rocks, I am sure you do too. I also know many people who do not have a receipt from a college, yet somehow seem to be far and away smarter than those around them that have one. The former are the people that Paul is talking about here. They work and study but their only purpose is to gain knowledge. They have no interest in the truth, only the fact. What is the difference you might ask. The difference is found in the application. Often Truth is a verb. A fact is just a fact. It is stored away until it needs to be brought out to prove a point. Think of it this way. If you go out and buy a model airplane, you have everything you need to build a model plane. However that fact does not build the plane. The truth is all of the knowledge in the world will not build that plane. You might be able to say, “yes, I can build a plane, I have the directions, and all of the parts….I have spent countless hours studying how to build one, so of course, with that knowledge, I can build one.” The truth is much more down, dirty, and ugly. The truth says “Yes, I can build one, see the trash can? It is full of all of my failures, but through perseverance, I have learned how to build one.” Knowledge is more philosophical, Truth is more elbow grease.
We know that there was a Christ, we know He lived on and walked the face of this Earth. We know He was crucified, we know He died, we know He was buried. That is a lot of knowledge, yet the truth tells us He defeated death……and this is where knowledge and truth diverge. You see knowledge cannot comprehend the truth. Knowledge says nothing in my books tell me how that could be possible. Truth says that I need no book, I have faith. Truth says I have tried and tried and tried on my own, and I have failed Yet with faith in Christ I have become successful. So while there is no book to explain this phenomenon, truth takes the leap, while knowledge is left on the edge, searching physics, biology, mathematics, and meta physics, for some shred of knowledge to link with what they have been taught. They learn, they have the knowledge, but they cannot fully come to understand the truth.
There is another use for this knowledge, and Paul brings it up to Timothy in this chapter, but that is for another day. For today we are left with the question, which one are we, and what do we do to help others see the truth? First ask yourself, which category do you fall in to? Do you have a lot of knowledge, yet can’t seem to make that jump? Do you get to the point of the burial of Christ, and just say “OK, I don’t get it, but I am just going to go along to get along.”? Maybe you even think, no way no how. I know too much about physics to believe that Christ was resurrected. Or are you one that leaps with reckless abandon? You see the edge, and you don’t just walk to it, you take a running leap of faith so you might get the most height, and distance out of your jump. If I were a betting man, I would say we mostly fall somewhere in the middle. Caught between the people we are and the people we want to be. So how do we get ourselves, and most importantly, how do we get others to make the leap every day?
We have to get H.O.T. good old hands on training. You see, a mason does not learn how to build a house by reading a book. HE has to pick up a trowel and get to work. A doctor cannot cure just by reading a book, he must cut, or diagnose to cure. A person cannot take a leap of faith just because they have read the Bible. Do you know what all three of these people have in common? They are all going to make a mess before they get it right. The mason will build a few junky walls, the doctor will misdiagnose, and the person on the road to Christianity will stumble, fall, and miss the mark many times. Knowledge does not take the place of experience, and it is experience that will bring the truth. I have yet to see anyone worth their salt that does not have a list of failures behind them. Typically the ones that have failed the worst tend to shine the brightest. So am I saying we set out to get busy failing? Of course not! But we do set out to find experience. For the Christian it is a two-fold pay off. Fist only by struggling for the experience will we ever fully understand the truth, second, by letting the world see our struggle, we help to dispel this ugly rumor that somehow all Christians are perfect. If you want to help someone make the jump from knowledge to the application of truth you will have to show them. When they see that failure is not the end, but really just the beginning, when they can understand that just as Christ fell on His way to that wretched hill, it is not the falling that counts, it is the rising,. Then they too will understand that until you get your hands dirty you will never understand the truth. Everyone wants to be a doctor, until they lose a patient, we all want to be lawyers, until your client get the chair, we all want to build walls, until those walls fall down around us. Truth is found, in the rubble, it is found in the hard times, and it is found after we have set down the dependence on knowledge and picked up the reliance of Christ. For in Christ there is no failure, there is no rubble…..and that is the truth.
God Bless,
Brian Thetford
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