John 7:14-24

 John 7:14-24

Christianity is not a theoretical religion. One of the great struggles with churches is that we have often emphasized learning without the proper emphasis on practice. There is no heroic merit in ignorance. Being dumb is not a virtue. But there is so much more to being a disciple then knowing the body of literature and the doctrines of the Christian faith. Verse 17 forces us to face a very personal and direct question. “If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself”. The immediate context is the lasting fury over Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath in chapter 5. But there is a principle for us, “In the doing there is the knowing.” It is impossible to come to mature and rich knowledge of God if we do not practice the faith. Imagine a situation in which a person might attend class for 60, 70, or 80 years and never graduate and enter the workforce. They may have advanced knowledge of the textbooks and may have even provided some leadership in the school itself, but having never entered the workforce they are all but useless. Sadly that is often the case in the church. Did you ever hear or see a graduation ceremony for Sunday School?

The verb “shall know” is a future middle verb in Greek and it means that as we do the knowledge happens to ourselves. In other words we cannot know unless we do. In one sense we can and will never ‘learn’ enough to ‘know’.   But as we act upon what we have learned we will grow into knowing. A person is better off acting in small steps, even if they haven’t learned much, than to have  80 years of study and learning and never take any action.  No amount of learning alone will produce intimacy with God.  High obedience with low knowledge is infinitely better than high knowledge with low obedience. 

“Lord, grant that I will apply what you have given to me in every interaction of life, AMEN”