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I Don't Know

There are things in theology that definitely qualify as distractions. Oddly enough, the people who know the least are the people most invested in things that don't matter. I should note the kind of "knowing" I'm talking about: it's a heart-knowing. Who is God? What is He about? The people who are invested in this question are doing theology; others are disputing facts and figures, as though this were the NFL Draft.

I am working to cultivate "I don't know" as the proper response to things that don't matter; it has quite a close relation in meaning to, "I don't care" in context.

If you read Genesis 1-3, and you don't say, "I need a Savior," you have missed the boat. There are hundreds of secondary questions related to that theme that deserve investigation, and Heaven help those tasked with those pursuits. Yet it seems like all the heat and light comes from things that don't matter. Let me put it a funny way:

"Exactly how long have we been in this dire, hopeless state, awaiting our salvation? How are we to understand this empirical data, filtered through an atheistic materialist worldview? I'm not sure we can go on doing our most important task, until these Very Important Questions have been answered."

Um, no. This very day, we go to proclaim Him who was sent in the last days as our redemption, who has brought even us near to the household of God. If you can't get excited about that, you need a reset button.

Comments

Nathan Hall said…
Amen to this. I think the light and heat come from friction where the Scriptures contact the interests of the fallen world. It is interested in the wrong things, and sometimes it is more fruitful to change the subject to something more important than to argue.

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