I know lots of people who would be full-time students if they didn’t have to pay rent and buy food. They love to learn — to fill their heads with more knowledge. At trivia night, you want these people on your team.
A love of learning is positive, and some individuals are just naturally good at retaining information. But there can be downsides if one is almost obsessively consuming information, especially if that information is limited to a particular ideology or perspective.
Passion and Distraction
Passionate love of politics, the issue of climate change, geology, sports, history, literature, and even the Bible: these are morally neutral subjects in their own right. But if one of these subjects takes up a lot of your time and thought, are you worshiping?
Jeff Robinson commented that “insofar as leisure time is enjoying things God has created for our good, they are by no means sin. But [...] they become sin when they take primacy in our lives and cause us to neglect our calling from God to work and minister to our families.” This is as true of the biblical savant as of a devotee to Major League Baseball.
Knowledge is not inherently sinful, but many Christians have been distracted from their purpose in life — to know and enjoy God, to share the gospel — when they have been convinced that the game on Sunday is more important than church. “When our leisure time and hobbies replace the worship of our Savior, they have become functional idols.”
Guarding Our Minds
Besides, knowledge without wisdom is a burden. God wants our minds for himself, and he wants to guard our minds too.
Paul’s famous exhortation to not be anxious provides instructions (pray earnestly and request what is on your heart from God, thanking him even before you know the answer), and here is the result: “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
The biblical savant knows the names of every King of Israel in order, can quote Psalm 119, and goes to church every Sunday.
Does he know trivia about the Bible, a lot of facts about God, or does heknow God? If not, then God is not the object of his worship; knowledge is that object.
That mind is not guarded against lies but filled with quotes that don’t ring true in his life; they don’t lead to discernment, worship, devotion, or obedience.
Colossians and Valuable Knowledge
The Bible itself is not our Savior but teaches us how to love him and to love like him.
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:9-10).
Paul’s words tell us a few things about the mind of a disciple of Christ:
1. Knowledge comes from God. Paul says that he and his friends have been praying for the Colossian church to mature in their understanding of the gospels by being filled with knowledge.
Who is doing the filling? God fills his people with “spiritual wisdom.” Proverbs 9:10 instructs us that “fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” God builds up our minds; he wants us to use them.
2. God is the best object of our curiosity.The knowledge we obtain from God enables us to pursue him more. There is no greater pursuit than an understanding of and relationship with our Father in heaven.
Paul wrote that “we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Not only do we learn facts about God from the Bible and from exploring the life of Christ, but we learn what it’s like to love God the way Jesus did.
3. Knowledge is for God’s purposes. Paul and his friends prayed that the members of the Colossian church would be filled with the knowledge of God so as to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him.” Knowing him helps us to recognize what that manner is: it looks like Jesus’ ministry.
Paul tells the Philippian church to think about everything honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8) — basically, anything that reflects the character of Jesus. When we recognize that, we can be effective imitators of our Lord and Savior.
4. Knowledge is not wisdom. Paul prayed for the Colossians to be “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”
James put it this way: “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17).
In Colossians, Paul connects the knowledge of God with wisdom, which is a judicious, thoughtful, truthful, God-honoring expression which reflects the character of Christ.
5. Knowledge is fruitful. You’ll know you’re being transformed when your knowledge emerges in fruitful ways. A wise and compassionate use of our knowledge of God should emanate from a heart at peace with and submitted to him.
Such knowledge is filled with the fruit of the spirit: reasonableness, fairness, compassion, honesty, mercy, generosity, humility, etc., “bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).
Know and Do
Knowledge, as understood by Paul in his letter to the Colossians, leads to action: “bearing fruit in every good work.”
We remember that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor — this is the good work Paul was talking about.
When we know God, we know what that work looks like. All we have to do is explore Jesus’ good works.
Jesus went to the sick, the disenfranchised, and the demon-possessed. He went to the impoverished, those in mourning, and those suffering the consequences of sexual sin.
Jesus invited them to know healing beyond physical wholeness, one which enabled them to see God’s attachment to them, his extravagant love for them, and to imagine eternity fully healed of all sickness and sin.
Jesus went everywhere, to everyone, and he even preached the truth to religious leaders who wanted him dead.
When we know Christ, we know why he preached to the blind beggar and the Samarian woman and the tax collector and the prostitute: this was how he brought God to them, face-to-face. Christ saw the sick, and he took the healer directly to them.
That is what we are commanded to do: when we know the healer, we bring him to the sick. We draw near to him in our own sickness of sin, illness, injury, or injustice, and we comfort others with the comfort he first brought to us (2 Corinthians 1:4).
We teach what we know of God, not to be right, but to help the lost recognize the Great, Eternal Shepherd.
You Can’t Live a Lie
Once you know God, it’s impossible to turn away from the truth. But you have to know God for yourself and “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1) — faith in Christ is not something you inherit.
For the knowledge of the glory of God to mean anything to you, it can’t be a historical relic; something passed down through your family. “Jesus declared ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’” (Matthew 22:37).
Resolve to find out about this God who calls you to himself so you can share the reasonableness of your faith (Philippians 4:5).
For further reading:
What Is Knowledge According to the Bible?
What Does it Mean to Grow in Grace and Knowledge?
What Do We Know about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
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