This week's Theme: Open my eyes
Day 1: Knowledge gives power
Many years ago, I was on a long transatlantic flight with my then seven-year-old. A gentleman sitting across the aisle noticed us— a mother at her wits end, and a tense, anxious child. He engaged us in conversation and quickly turned the topic to his profession—aerospace engineering.
To a completely entranced seven-year-old, this kind gentleman explained the laws of aerodynamics in simple, child-friendly, engaging language. Before long, a brand-new education on lift, weight, thrust, and drag had put a small child’s fear to flight (yes, pun intended!)
“Knowledge gives power,” Scripture tells us (Proverbs 24:5 – CEB). We may not immediately associate this truth with the ordinary, “inconsequential” experiences of life, but the point of Scripture is to apply wisdom to all the experiences of life— ordinary, “inconsequential,” extraordinary and momentous.
A current advertising campaign by a large US Fortune 500[i] company communicates the Scripture concept in the words of the more familiar adage, “Knowledge is Power.” In a series of television commercials, decisions based on sound knowledge/information are contrasted with uninformed decisions.
In one example, a pair of adventurers prepare to set sail, blithely describing the weather conditions as “perfect.” A much better-informed pair on the dock prepares to alert officials of the inevitable pending rescue of the clueless mariners. Having checked the weather forecast they know that a storm is brewing!
We can all probably appreciate the commercial’s combination of shade and humor, coated with a tinge of smugness, but it isn’t just in the advertising world that people live according to the misguided philosophy that “ignorance is bliss.” [ii] And sadly, consequences aren’t often as straightforward as alerting a rescue operation that help may be needed.
The power of sound knowledge can be immediate and transformative—in the simple, and in the complex. It can make a difference in the flight experience of a small child, or in the conscience of a society.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, for instance, has been credited with confronting the evils of slavery in “living color” (more puns!). It raised a gigantic mirror over a divided country, reflecting side-by-side images of culpability and complicity.
But the converse, too, is true. Lack of knowledge, prudence, wisdom, and foresight are all discussed in Scripture as causes of dire consequences that extend far beyond the confines of time, place, or distance. And God assigns to us the active responsibility for seeking and applying knowledge and wisdom, employing prudence, refuting ignorance, renouncing folly, refraining from, and denouncing evil.
The Book of Proverbs alone, provides numerous explicit instructions for navigating all the pitfalls that derail individuals, destroy relationships, tear apart communities, dismantle organizations, topple nations, tear down civilizations… Other Scriptures expand and enhance the principles of wisdom.
The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty (Proverbs 22:3; 27:12).
Where there is no vision (revelation), people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction (Proverbs 29:18).
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge... (Hosea 4:6 – NKJV).
But we cannot afford to apply Scripture principles selectively— they apply in both the natural and spiritual realm. And God calls us to discernment in every sphere.
We may see and understand great spiritual truths, and possess great ability to understand the lies and distortions of God’s truth in the heavenlies— but completely fail to see how these same lies and distortions manifest in the natural realm. We may take theoretical stances against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12) yet fail to recognize how we embrace them as “angels of light” in our everyday choices and decisions.
The opposite is also true. In the world around us it is possible for us to process a great deal of information with clarity and discernment. We may readily recognize manipulation and evil intent, lies and equivocation, distortion and disinformation. All in the natural. And we are amazed that many around us “cannot see,” and we conclude that they simply refuse to see.
Yet we may quite easily miss the parallels at work in the spiritual. We may not recognize the manipulation and evil intent of the master deceiver Jesus described as a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).
We may miss the same patterns of lies, equivocation, distortion, and disinformation—the same messages of twisted predictability— the same forces working to obscure, distort, destroy—even from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-4) — that we so clearly discern in the world.
In the physical world, we may bravely “stand up for truth.” But in the realm of the spiritual we may be like Pilate, cynically demanding, “What is truth?” even while simultaneously appealing to “basis” (John 18:38).
To be clear, none of us has a perfect grasp of truth. Our only hope is in the Holy Spirit, who will guide us into all truth, as Jesus promised (John 16:13). We dare not become puffed up with knowledge without love (1Corinthians 8:1); becoming like those Jesus rebuked for having heads full of knowledge and hearts full of stone (John 5:39-40). And we dare not become puffed up with idle notions by… unspiritual minds (Colossians 2:18).
Left to our own, we have no standard to guide us— only a mess of selfish, conflicting, devouring, annihilating, power-fueled agendas. Our only hope is in the words of a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who declared, “I am… the truth… (John 14:6).
By His resurrection, in fulfilling a promise no other could: I lay down my life—only to take it up again (John 10:17), He proved the truth of His identity, and the trustworthiness of every other truth He has declared. And He assigns us the decision to choose the Way, and the Truth and the Life, or the deceiver and master manipulator who lures us with promises then blindsides us with destruction:
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10).
[i] The Fortune 500 is a list—compiled by Fortune magazine—showing the companies with the highest revenue in the United States
[ii] Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, Thomas Gray, published 1742
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