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He's Pretty Smart In What He knows Out in Arkansas a group of Christians got together once a month for breakfast. Sometimes they talked about the Bible and various issues among the brethren, sometimes they just talked about stuff. The above statement was made by Charlie Bratcher. He is a retired navy man and a pretty good philosopher. A number of men were talking about a preacher and how smart he is when Charlie made his comment. The more I got to thinking about it the more impressed I was by it. It is not how much you know that matters but what you know. There are people who can tell you who pitched the seventh game of the world series in the 1940's or they can tell you who invented the wheel. They have a lot of knowledge and can even regurgitate it to others. I am not saying such information is totally useless, but a lot of the things we know may not ever matter. You see, some of those same folks cannot tell you anything about today. They do not know what it means to work, to solve their own problems, or anything about the Bible. They may be smart, but not in the things that matters the most. They know nothing about the Bible and the condition of their soul. They may be smart in the affairs of this world, they may be great business men, or professors at a University, but they are lacking in what matters the most. This is the group in 1 Corinthians 1. "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chose the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty" (1 Corinthians 1.26-27). No one knows everything about everything. The television show "Cheers" had a character that seemed to think he was omniscient. He would be asked a question and came up with some sort of crazy answer and everyone one would laugh. Of course in trying to know everything, he really knew nothing. As some would say, he had just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Some people know just enough about the Bible to be dangerous because they think they know everything about it. For instance, there are some things we will never know. We will never know when Jesus will return. "But of that day and hour no one knows, not every the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father... Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming-- in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning-- lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!" (Mark 13.32,35-37). Unfortunately some so called Bible scholars try to answer some questions that no one knows the answer to. Some of the smartest men I know realize what they do not know. They do not try to answer questions that man cannot answer. They understand the point of Deuteronomy 29.29 "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." Many a Bible Class has wasted time in trying to answer that which is not revealed. There are some things we just need to leave alone. Those who know what they do know and what they do not know are the truly smart people. A person aware of their ignorance can be taught, but a person who believes they already know the answers is almost impossible to teach. The Ethiopian Eunuch was a person who was aware of his ignorance. When asked if he understood what he was reading, he practically invited Philip to teach him the scriptures in Acts 8. There are a lot of things in the Bible we can and should learn. Then the things we do know we should hold on to. For instance, we know that there is but one God, 1 Corinthians 8.4. No one should ever be able to teach us otherwise. We know that we cannot change the will of God and that God hears the prayers of the righteous. We know that God loves us and sent His Son to die for us so we can have salvation, John 3.16. We also know that we will eventually die and face God in judgment Hebrews 9.27. These are things we can hang our hat on, so to speak, and never doubt. So yes we can be pretty smart in those things we know and in those things we do not know. Think about it. -- Dennis Tucker |