Whac-A-Mole: Relativism — Thursday
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (ESV)
As long as I can remember, I’ve always had a thirst for knowledge. While I never liked school, I always loved to learn. I have a curious mind, which—I’ll admit—has gotten me into trouble before. I have this deep desire to find the existential meaning in everything I experience. While I love to learn, learning has also always been a great struggle for me. I grew up with and still have multiple learning disabilities. On top of ADHD, I struggle with both reading and math comprehension. It takes me about three hours to accomplish what most people can accomplish in one. For the most part, because of my disabilities, I am an autodidact, which is a fancy word for “a self-taught person.”
I realized my thirst for knowledge combined with my self-taught motivation had reached an unhealthy level after completing my 10th year of college and earning my 5th degree. I looked around at my life and realized that all I had accomplished was racking up a lifetime’s worth of student loan debt, a bunch of letters after my name, and some very expensive wallpaper. When I didn’t have my nose in a book, I was scouring the internet for whatever knowledge the world could provide. The one book I failed to get knowledge from was the Bible.
1 Corinthians 13:2 states, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (NIV). Several years ago, I found myself asking: What good does all the knowledge in the world do me if I don’t know God? What is all the knowledge worth if I don’t have love? The only knowledge I’m taking to heaven is my knowledge of God.
There is plenty of good and useful knowledge to be obtained through education that is for our and others’ benefit. There is also plenty of terrible knowledge in the world of no merit or value. However, there is only ONE knowledge that leads to life everlasting. That is “the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments” (Colossians 2:2b-4, ESV).
Thursday’s Reflection
Do you get your knowledge from the various and vast depths of the internet? Have you placed knowledge on a pedestal like I did? What are your sources of knowledge, and how do they influence you? Do you need more knowledge of God? Pray Ephesians 1:17—“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him” (ESV).