knowing and doing

the pursuit of knowledge is a good thing...

except when it's not.

it's easy to learn stuff for the sake of learning it, gaining knowledge in order to puff oneself up.

and this is an error to walk away from.

however i think we can fall into the opposite error also; d.h. seeking only application from anything - "what should i do because of this?" "how do i do this badly?" and so on.

which again, isn't bad in and of itself, but it can mean we keep beating ourselves up, that we never gain perspective, that when we read (in this example) the Bible, all we see are lists of "start doing this" and "stop doing that".

i want to remind my legion readers, as i remind myself by writing, that application is the right thing to do, but this is two-fold;
not just what we should or shouldn't do, but also what we should or shouldn't think.

scripture enlargens our appreciation of who God is, how the world works, why Jesus came. we may indeed DO stuff in response to this, but the primary application is knowledge, understanding, grasping the magnificence of our great God.

i think this is what the Bible would call Fear.

fearing God encompasses understanding who he is, such that we can put our faith in him.

and it is only after the Bible is thus applied, that we can understand the dos and don'ts, that we can understand the horrendousness of our sin before God, but at the same time understand the merciful life-giving grace which is so lavishly given us, that we might not be condemned in our sin.