Learning Shown by Doing

Teaching the Bible is different than teaching other subjects because the aim is different.  God's will is not merely to educate or improve mankind but to transform hearers into the people He created and designed us to be.  Knowledge alone is incapable of doing what only God can do in a heart that believes and trusts Him.  It is possible, as Paul said, to be "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 3:7).  In the Bible Knowledge Commentary Adam Clarke is credited with this quote, "There are many professors of Christianity still who answer the above description. They hear, repeatedly hear, it may be, good sermons; but, as they seldom meditate on what they hear, they derive little profit from the ordinances of God. They have no more grace now than they had several years ago, though hearing all the while, and perhaps not wickedly departing from the Lord. They do not meditate, they do not think, they do not reduce what they hear to practice; therefore, even under the preaching of an apostle, they could not become wise to salvation."

In Christianity, knowing is primarily shown by doing.  Having a grasp of sound doctrine is indispensable, but better to practice the little you know to be true in obedience to scripture than to know all mysteries of the kingdom of God and be denied access to it.  Preaching at its best is good teaching, and if it pleases God to gift people to teach it follows we all have a need to learn, grow and change.  Over time a small child grows into a man or woman, and many changes occur inside and out during that process.  An adult still has as much to learn as a little one when it comes to knowing God, for His ways and thoughts are infinitely higher than ours.  Even our Saviour Jesus Christ as a human being needed to learn, for it is written in Hebrews 5:7-8 of Jesus "who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, ⁸ though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered."  Being God Jesus could have explained what obedience is, and until He was manifested in human form it could not be said it was possible for God to learn anything.  Even God learned by doing.

Even as Jesus Christ subjected Himself to Joseph and Mary, we ought to subject ourselves to walk in obedience to God's will as Paul urged in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7:  "Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; ² for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour, ⁵ not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. ⁷ For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness."  It is one thing to know the commands given by Jesus, and it is God's will this should lead to knowing how to keep our bodies in sanctification, honour and holiness.  Knowing without doing leads to the snare of pride and arrogance, and thus Christians who are well-versed can stumble into the error of Satan and the Pharisees.  It is not that knowledge creates pride but having knowledge can invigorate and expose its existence already within us.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 8:1-3:  "Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. ² And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. ³ But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him."  The one who takes pride in their great knowledge actually reveals their ignorance, for God's will is for us to do justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with God.  The greater our knowledge of God the more meek and humble we will be before God whom we fear and love.  The greater our knowledge of God's word the more obvious and detestable we will recognise our sin; a greater knowledge of God's will exposes our failure to walk in it and our desperate need for grace.  I love verse 3, don't you?  All we know pales in comparison to the God who knows us, for He knows anyone who loves Him.  We are nobodies God delights to call His own having loved Him because He first loved us.  Knowledge of the God who is love is a greater treasure than we can fully appreciate, and God willing we will learn to.