Limited Perception of Universal Knowledge 8.22.2024

     When I was 22 years old and fresh out of Bible College, I knew everything. Graduate education was more or less a finishing school—putting on a few extra layers of lacquer on an already completed education. For most of the next 40 years I have been coming to terms with how short sighted, arrogant, and silly that sentiment was. Being educated is easier than being wise. And one of the first lessons wisdom teaches us is that we all have limited perception. We aspire to knowing the answer to “Life, the universe, and everything” and quickly discover how obtuse this pretense to universal knowledge really is. 

    When we think we have all the answers we seldom ask good questions, in fact we may become less inquisitive. Curiosity is the mother of learning. I am convinced that we need ambitiously curious preachers. We need a generation of young people who ask the right questions of scripture, their predecessors, and those who educate them. We need fearless learners who are willing to engage culture at every level and who are willing to broaden their hermeneutical approach while creatively answering the questions of our culture with Biblical solutions. Those answers are seldom supplied by twenty-somethings who think they already know all the answers. 

When we think we know all the answers we seldom learn difficult lessons. In fact, the pretense to complete knowledge tends to take refuge in intellectual safe zones.  Those who feel safe in their intellectual prejudices seldom take risks that endanger long-held conclusions. We need preachers who know the difference between taking necessary intellectual risks and unnecessary recklessness. Maturing Christians, particularly preachers, should not need anyone to tell them the difference.  The point of aging is not merely getting older. The point in aging process is growing wise, and wisdom comes from taking the right risks. 

    When we think we know all the answers we seldom listen to discordant voices. Yes men (women too) are a poison! Who disagrees with you when you need disagreeing with? Anyone? And what about your friends, do you provide responsible feedback? Are you willing to help others find answers or do you too quickly rush in to provide them? I have been blessed throughout my ministry with friends and colleagues who listened to my foolishness, asked appropriate questions and then gave me soft guidance into discovering the answers. We need preachers who are inquisitive and creative rather than doctrinaire and calcified. You will often, after the process of inquiry runs its course, find yourself back where you started. It is during that journey that growth occurs. 

    When we think we know all the answers we seldom engage different viewpoints. A part of intellectual growth is escaping our own, inbuilt confirmation bias. If we do not engage different viewpoints (doctrinal, philosophical, denominational, hermeneutical) all our reading and study amounts to nothing more than a moat around our own prejudices. We need preachers who not only read authors they disagree with, but who actually enjoy and profit from the process. There is nothing more invigorating than discovering and learning the 1 % that is good from a book you disagree with 99% of the time. And yes, it is worth it. 

    When we think we know all the answers we seldom recalibrate our conclusions. The two most difficult yet important phrases which will help to define a growing ministry are “I was wrong”, and “I do not know”. Both speak to credibility and teachability. What good would a preacher really be if she had reached no new conclusions, rethought no old interpretations, recalibrated no old approaches? Not much. If we view our ministry as a healthy, growing organism we should then be constantly outgrowing our own ignorance, and re-establishing our foundational conclusions. We need preachers whose curiosity is not only insatiable but cannibalistic. It is possible to constantly reassess what others have said, while through arrogance, sloth, or apathy, reassessing none of our own positions. We need preachers who are not only curious and growing but who are also constantly editing themselves and the things they have previously said and thought. 

    We will always have a limited perception of the big picture. Universal knowledge will always elude our grasp. This should motivate our ongoing quest to understand Scripture, deepen our relationship with Christ, and comprehend the nature of our universe. This is a human quest with spiritual nuance. When we engage in this pursuit with faith, we are expressing a central aspect of the Imago Dei that defines the human person. Though not God, we are like Him in ways that allow us to enlarge our experience through growing knowledge. 

    What does this mean for ministry? It means that the best preachers and teachers are life-long learners. However, you may conceive of this divine task to which you are called, you must absolutely see yourself as a continuous student of both Scripture and all the social and cultural tributaries that make you who you are. There are no pat answers to the questions you will be asked in your ministry at the time and in the place in which you live. If you wish to be of service to your Church, your community, and your God then you need to hit the books and become a keen observer of what goes on around you. You may be smart—a genius even—but you don’t know everything. And learning is only one way to learn.