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Jim's PERSPECTIVEMarch 16, 2015For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. Hebrews 8:10-11 There are a number of expressions one uses to extend a greeting. “Hi, Hey, Hello, Hullo (British), Howdy,” are some. Others come in the form of a question: “How are you?” “How ya doin?” “How’s it going?” “What’s up?” “What’s going on?” Most of us realize when asked, “How are you?” that we are not really being invited to give a detailed chronicle of our present aches and pains, or one’s existential angst, or any other general state of well or not-so-well-being. It’s just a greeting, a way of voicing a salutation. Many years ago a friend approached me with these words: Whaddya know?” It was August 1972. The reason I remember it so vividly is because it marks the first time in my life that I consciously remember actually thinking about what I know, that is, what I really, truly know. Of course I realized that this man was not quizzing me on what or how much I knew about whatever, nonetheless I did pause to reflect on the literal meaning of the question, and I responded, “Paul, I don’t know anything.” He laughed, apparently thinking that I was being humorous, or maybe even a bit philosophical, and he said, “Now you’re talking….” He liked my answer. It dawned on me at that very moment that this was also the first time I ever admitted to not knowing something. Anything. My basic personality has always tended toward being highly opinionated (a lot of that probably comes from being the offspring of a school teacher), perhaps to the extent of being a “know-it-all” even when I knew perfectly well that I did not know what I was talking about. If I did not know, I felt compelled to come up with an answer of some kind, even a fake one. It was just that in that instance, I had a sudden flash of honesty. And it felt good. This was late afternoon on the day that I was eventually to encounter the risen Christ Jesus. And I had no idea that a spiritual experience of any description was imminent (and I won’t describe it here). I bring it up only to say that one of the hallmarks of this encounter was the exhilaration of being able to say afterwards, without guilt, self-reproach, or self-pity, or without the fear of making myself vulnerable, “I don’t know.” That, in my mind, is a key to power and an insight into Paul’s assertion in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” There is no shame is not knowing something except in cases of negligent or willful ignorance, because what you don’t know can hurt you, and “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” as they say. But in most situations, the admission of not knowing paves the way to knowing. Not knowing the answer to a question should lead one to ask questions. If one thinks that one already knows the answer, there is no need to pursue an alternative. I appreciate all those who try to set others free by saying, “There is no such thing as a stupid question.” So what do you know? I am asking that you take stock in that question on a literal level. Not only “What do you know?” but also “How do you know it?” We Christians talk about “knowing” Jesus or “knowing” God. How does that flesh itself out? In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus states that not everyone who even says, “Lord, Lord….” necessarily knows him. In fact, to make the claim to have done things “in His name”, e.g., to prophesy (declaring messages under the auspices of the Kingdom of God), to cast out demons (doing exorcisms), “wonderful works” (performing miracles) without his sanctioning of it is to court disaster. “I never knew you. Depart from me.” is Jesus’ response, and I don’t really know that means. In the past I have jokingly told people that if they should go to Glory and have the occasion to tell the Father, “Well, Jim Radford said that You said….” I could imagine Him responding, “Jim who?” Actually, I would be surprised and disappointed if God so answered, particularly if what I say that God said is really true. I have also pointed out the obvious that one cannot very effectively speak of “knowing” God if one doesn’t know God. Another friend said to me, a couple of years ago, “I think that you are claiming to know something you don’t know.” I believe that I have written about that somewhere in a previous perspective article. A line in one of my songs, “A Place to Stand” serves to illustrate the point. In fact, the verse exists because of the aforementioned conversation I had with that friend while sitting out on my front porch a couple of years ago. The line in the song goes,
My friend is one of several persons I have known over the years who has questioned claims I have made publicly to have heard God say thus-and-such, or claims that God has done this-or-that in my own life. I have stated many times and in many places that the only thing I really care about, in terms of my own ministry, is that what I believe God said to me and what I believe God has done is really true, and not just something I “believe” is true or that I “believe” He has done, or worse, something that I “imagine” is true or that I “imagine” He has done. Furthermore, it seems disingenuous to claim that one “knows” God if one does not really know him. And, besides, in view of the scriptures foretelling of a day in which we shall “know as we are known,” it would not be unreasonable to surmise that our knowing Him is not nearly as important as Him knowing us. I once asked an artist friend to help me come up with a visual concept of the old gospel hymn, “He Lives.” Many of us are familiar with the chorus containing the line, “He walks with me and talks with me….” Incidentally, such a claim, at the least, would be audacious if it were not true. The artist said, “Well, I think that we experience God through serving others.” I responded that while “experiencing God through serving others” is absolutely true and altogether worthy of doing, and though Jesus says Matthew 25, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me….” I do not believe that knowing, experiencing, serving, and loving others is the equivalent of knowing, experiencing, serving, and loving God Himself. It simply is not the same. There is another line in a so-called “secular” song I do that was written by Otis Blackwell entitled “Paralyzed.” Elvis Presley made it famous in the nineteen fifties. The line is, “I thought of grabbing you real tight, squeezing and squeezing with all of my might, but all I could do was stand there paralyzed.” If people should hear me sing that line, they must know that, for me, this is a reference to the night in August 1972 when I actually did feel like “squeezing and squeezing” God with all of my might. The guy I referenced in the beginning of this perspective article, Paul, was sitting in a chair across from me at the moment of my encounter with Jesus. I ended up throwing my arms around him (and, no, we were not having church or even a religious conversation; we had been moving furniture) and weeping like a child in repentance, forgiveness, release, and love. My friend had no idea what was happening; it took him totally by surprise. The point is, hugging my friend was not the same as hugging God, although I do wonder if God would regard it as the same thing. Maybe he would; I don’t know. In addition to knowing God, we are told that we must actually love God. Many are acquainted with the verse in John’s first epistle, “We love him because he first loved us.” But, again, how does one do that exactly? By loving others? Yes, and no. Loving others is, to be sure, an expression of loving God. And the expression of love as an action and not an emotion is often pointed out by Bible teachers as what God expects. We are told in the New Testament that loving God is the first great commandment. It doesn’t say, “Love God by loving others,” and it doesn’t say, “Love God by expressing an action and not an emotion.” In any case, Jesus put it this way in Luke 10, Mark 12, and Matthew 26, “AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” But loving God for God’s sake is not something we come by naturally. It really doesn’t make much sense, intellectually speaking. God is Spirit. We are human. God is infinite. We are finite. God is a universal. We are individuals. This gets us into a philosophical—specifically a metaphysical—discussion not intended to go here, and that will have to be taken up elsewhere and at another time. However, for the moment it is a very good question to ask: what is the difference between universal and individual knowledge; or put a better way, what is the difference between knowing God as a universal (an idea) and knowing God as an individual (as a particular subject)? How and what one knows is a matter for epistemology, the branch of philosophy that deals with the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge, and is something I am vitally interested in. Another good question in this same vein comes from Jacques Maritain, the French philosopher/theologian: How does the intellect attain knowledge and acquire truth? In the meantime, the verse from the eighth chapter of the book of Hebrews heading this article reminds us that:
At the end of the day, God does not need my input, witness, testimony, or anything else to commend Him. And as John Milton writes in his poem, “On His Blindness,” God does not need either man’s work or his own gifts; who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best…..He doesn’t need for me to say to you or anyone, “Know the Lord.” But I do believe that God is calling me to address the existence of the possibility that we can. We’ll see…. |
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©2013 Jim Radford. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.
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