Confessions of an Ignoramus...Continued from page 3

God’s done the same for us.  Someone said the Bible contains approximately 30,000 promises.  That’s plenty to guide us.  God has given, not just promises but also commands, prohibitions and principles.  He has not told us everything, but He has told us much!  We have not been given everything we want to know, but all we need to know.

As vast and unmanageable as is the ever-increasing knowledge of man, it is in God’s eyes a thimble-full of His omniscience.  Every ounce is a gift from Him.  Thomas Edison said, “We do not know one-millionth part of one percent about anything.”  God has given us access to enough discoverable knowledge to keep us busy for countless millenniums, but we need to see all of that as a gift from Him.  What is revealed to us in the Scriptures is a sufficient guide to walk with Him.  But still we wonder . . .

3. Why the Division Between What is Secret and What is Revealed?

God’s purpose is that fellowship might be created between us.  He desires that obedience might be produced in us.  These “things belong to us . . . that we might follow . . .”  God has drawn the line between what we can know and what we can’t know for this purpose -- that it might maximize the opportunity to enter into relationship with Him. 

We want to know answers.  God wants us to know Him!  God drew the line between knowable and unknowable so that we can walk that line in fellowship with Him -- believing what He has shown us and trusting Him for what we cannot see.

Do you see how radically different this is from the world’s view of knowledge?  To them knowledge is for convenience, survival, curiosity and independence!  But Owen Hanson observed, “After thousands of years, western civilization has advanced to where we bolt our doors and windows at night while jungle natives sleep in open huts.”  All our brilliant seeking after knowledge has done little more than pollute our hearts, muddy our vision, and feed our rebellion against the God who alone knows all things.  Yet He continues to hold forth His gift of knowledge, insisting that He’d like to have fellowship with us if we’ll just accept the gift and embrace the view of reality it affords us.

Here are the profound conclusions of an ignoramus: Can we know anything we wish?  Answer: No.  What can we know?  Answer: Plenty, and all of it is a gift from God.  Why the division between the two?  Answer: So that we might know and walk with our Creator.

Maybe we’re like the old farmer who was approached by a book salesman.  As the salesman approached the weather-worn farmer, he said, “I’ve got a book here that will tell you how to farm ten times better than you’re doing it now.”  The farmer quietly considered the offer and then replied, “Son, I don’t need your book.  I already know how to farm ten times better than I’m doing it now.”

While we fuss and fume over things we don’t know, most of us know how to live ten times better than we’re now living.  Knowledge is not our problem.  Walking with God in light of the knowledge He has given us -- that’s what matters.

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Notes
1. Grudem, Wayne, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 119.