September 8

Day 178: Tree of Knowledge

It takes some effort to remember a day when information was more difficult to acquire. I more easily remember when TV went color. What follows will make me out to be the dinosaur I must now be.

Back in (prehistoric) times past, and when tasked with writing a paper for an English class, I might have had to watch the evening news, or searched through a daily newspaper. Yet worse, I might have had to ask a parent to drive me to the cavernous and imposing public library.

The cursed library! Where one had to first be versed in the Dewey Decimal System, the sometimes impossible guide map for finding the book one needed to find. After a moment or two of inevitable frustration, most of us would just bail on Dewey, and go ask the librarian.

I remember the day (actually two distinct days in my then young lifetime) when scholarly information came into our very home.  The Encyclopedia Britannica on one special day, and the even more readable World Book Encyclopedia showed up some years later. Both multi-volume book sets. No more Dewey.

That's how we somehow (barely) survived our early academic careers. Now, we just look at our phones.

Today, I cannot even watch a TV show without referring to my phone to look up a historical person, a Mexican cuisine ingredient, or a ballplayer's career stats. I can now know the weather before the weather knows the weather.

And...I can get my news delivery from any slanted source I choose; creating for myself a customized echo chamber. Confident the news source will agree with me, even before reading it.

Certainly not all, but some of my Christian friends devote substantial time to gathering information. Looking for confirmation of what they may already believe to be true. The Bible is sometimes reduced to a hard bound set of encyclopedia, as we look instead to "extra-biblical" sources (like traditions, scholars and writers we already know and trust.)

In our defense, Proverbs does say, "It is the glory of God to know a matter, and the glory of man to search out a matter." But...

We want to eat from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 3.) Because we want to know the difference between "good and evil." But really, because we want to know what is right, correct, even unassailable.

In response, Romans 14 starts off with, "As for the person who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions." Paul writes this, because, evidently, his readers were so busy with winning their opinion arguments, they were neglecting the living out of their faith.

What's crazy is, "Even the demons believe - and shudder" (James 2:19.) The demons know the truth, but certainly don't live in light of that truth. The very next verse gives context. "Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?"

We all have known at least someone who doesn't ask questions because he/she want to learn. Instead, they ask questions because they want to distract, or simply like the sport of it.

It is not our opinions nearly as much as our lives that will be judged. "So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead" (James 2:17.) We can easily chase new Biblical information while disobeying the information we already have.

So a word to the wise: Don't keep eating from the Tree of Knowledge, if it keeps you from the Tree of Life.

-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church | Juneau