Grandpa said,
“Josh, it’s not what you know that will hurt you.
It’s what you don’t know.”
Frankly, that advice didn’t comfort me. At all.
Until I understood what he was trying to tell me!
Find out what you don’t know.
You find it. Don’t let it find you.
That revelation has taught me 3 things…
- Knowledge is protection.
- Knowledge is discoverable.
- How much you know is up to you.
Romans 1:18-20
18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
Knowledge is Protection.
Seeing is preferable to blindness.
Yes, you’ll see ugly. Yes, you’ll see scary.
The beauty outweighs it. The information outweighs it.
The light by which we see the world in our minds is knowledge.
When you don’t know how business works, you cannot see the obstacles in front of you or a good path forward.
When you don’t know how people work, you cannot see the damage you are doing to yourself or others.
Like a man who cannot feel pain, a man without knowledge is vulnerable to the surrounding dangers unseen.
Knowledge is Discoverable.
Neo learned Kung Fu in the Matrix just by getting plugged into a computer.
That technology isn’t available to us, but…
That doesn’t mean that knowledge is hidden somewhere that it can’t be found.
God has placed knowledge right in front of you and calls it obvious.
His very existence and worth is proclaimed by His beautiful creation.
Knowledge requires more than input like reading, schooling, or interviewing.
Knowledge is gained through deduction.
Take something universal that you know to gain knowledge in something specific that you don’t know.
In Romans 1, the deduction goes like this…
Universal Knowledge
Everything ordered and beautiful has a design.
Everything that has a design has a designer.
The design is inferior to the designer.
Specific Knowledge
Nature is ordered and beautiful, therefore it has a design.
Therefore, it has a designer.
Therefore, it is inferior to the designer.
A lot of the knowledge we need to thrive is only discovered through deduction—not fact input!
How Much You Know Is Up To You.
Here’s another deduction…
Since knowledge can be discovered, we can grow in knowledge.
Since we can grow in knowledge and it protects us, we can set ourselves up for a better future.
Learn the knowledge today that will preserve you in the future.
What undesirable issues in your life point to a lack of knowledge?
What source of knowledge could you engage on that subject today?
When will you spend dedicated time to think the issue through?
Pastor Joshua
Have anything you’d like to add?
Leave a comment below!
Great thoughts here. Without the power of deduction many qualify as “fact-checkers” on Facebook.
From another perspective, what we know can destroy us if we are not motivated to seeking knowledge by love.
“Knowledge puffs up, but LOVE edifies.”
That’s a good point. Great knowledge can be a destroying force without love motivating it.