December 2nd, 2012 (First Sunday in Advent)
2 Chronicles 17 (1 Kngs 15:24c; 22:41-45)
“To Know Him Is to Love Him”
Bible Memory Verse for the Week: Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you. — Psalm 9:10
Background Information:
- In 1 Kings Jehoshaphat rates a scant ten verses. The reason for this seems to be the desire of the inspired writer of 1 Kings to concentrate on the ministry of Elijah, which took place in the North. As we have seen the Chronicler’s heart has always been set upon the Southern Kingdom, that kingdom where the Lord caused his name to dwell and his anointed one to rule. (Paul O. Wendland, The People’s Bible, 2 Chr, 194-95)
- If there is an overarching theme uniting all the chapters that describe Jehoshaphat’s reign, it would be that God opposes every evil alliance. (Paul O. Wendland, The People’s Bible, 2 Chr, 195)
- One of the oddities of the Biblical narrative is that his notable reign is almost passed over in the Kings narrative, except as it impinges on the affairs of the northern kingdom (viz. 1 Kgs 15:24; 22:1ff.; 2 Kgs 1:17; 3:1, 7-27; 8:16, 24, 25; 12:18), while in the Chronicles account there are four long chapters (2 Chr 17:20) devoted to his story, scarcely equaled in extent by any other king’s history in the Chronicles, plus notices in 1 Chr 3:10 and 2 Chr 22:9. The reason seems to be that important matters leading to the ultimate demise of the northern kingdom are the center of interest in the Kings account, the disobedience to the Mosaic Covenant and the efforts of Elijah and Elisha to correct matters being more central to the author’s interest. In Chronicles the famous piety of the great king and his succession, both reviving and preserving the institutions and standards of the Mosaic Covenant, are being cited at length to the postexilic Restoration community to produce both guidance and inspiration for that dispirited generation. (Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 3, 423-24)
- Jehoshaphat was 35 years old when he began his 25 year reign.
- Prv 16:7 (Gn 35:5) When a man’s ways please the Lord He makes even his enemies live at peace with him.
- Along with kings Hezekiah and Josiah, Jehoshaphat ranks as one of the Chronicler’s favorite kings of the divided monarchy. This is attested not only by the volume of material devoted to his reign (four chapters), but also among the kings of Judah only Jehoshaphat (17:3), Hezekiah (29:2), and Josiah (34:2) are likened to King David. Chronicles expands the Kings’ version of Jehoshaphat’s rule over Judah (50 verses in Kings compared to 103 verses in Chronicles) and shifts the focus of attention from King Ahab of Israel to Jehoshaphat. (Andrew E. Hill, The NIV Application Commentary: 1 & 2 Chr, 477)
- Although the narrative summarizing Jehoshaphat’s kingship lacks a rigid chronological framework, the dates for his 25 year reign are between 872 and 848 B.C. On the basis of comparative analysis of the date formulas for Jehoshaphat’s length of reign, it is generally understood he rules for three years as a co-regent with his father prior to his own 22 year tenure on the throne (from 869-848 B.C.; cf. 2 Kgs 3:1, 8:16; 2 Chr 20:31). (Andrew E. Hill, The NIV Application Commentary: 1 & 2 Chr, 477)
- (v. 7) The reference to the “third year” of Jehoshaphat’s reign is significant, if the historical reconstruction understanding a three-year co-regency between Asa and his son Jehoshaphat is correct (perhaps coinciding with Asa’s affliction in his feet, cf. 16:12). This means that Jehoshaphat marks the beginning of his own independent rule over Judah with an initiative aimed at spiritual reform. (Andrew E. Hill, The NIV Application Commentary: 1 & 2 Chr, 479)
- (vss. 7-9) The people of Judah were Biblically illiterate. They had never taken time to listen to and discuss God’s law and understand how it could change them. Jehoshaphat realized that knowing God’s commands was the first step to getting people to live as they should, so he initiated a nationwide religious education program. He reversed the religious decline that had occurred at the end of Asa’s reign by putting God first in the people’s minds and instilling in them a sense of commitment and mission. Because of this action, the nation began to follow God. Churches and Christian schools today need solid Christian education programs. Exposure to good Bible teaching through church school, church, Bible study, and personal and family devotions is essential for living as God intended. (Tyndale House Publishers, Life Application Study Bible, 736-37)
- (vss. 10-12) The presence of God with Jehoshaphat was so evident in his military strength that the nations around him did not make war with him (17:10). Instead, they brought gifts and silver as tribute…rams and goats (17:11). (Richard L. Pratt, 1 & 2 Chr, A Mentor Commentary, 321)
- (v. 9) The curriculum consists of “the Book of the Law,” presumably some form of the Pentateuch–perhaps more specifically the Covenant Code (Ex 19-24) or even what we now know as the book of Deuteronomy. This type of teaching ministry is in keeping with Moses’ charge to the tribe of Levi: “He teaches your precepts to Jacob and your law to Israel” (Dt 33:10). The verb “to teach” (2 Chr 17:7, 9) is a common word for instruction in the OT (cf. Dt 4:10; 5:10). It implies that education is a process of assimilation, not the dumping of information. The teacher stimulates the learner to imitate the desired action or behavioral response by word and example. The program appears to have been one of unrestricted access to religious education, as the “people” of Judah are the target audience of this “tuition-free” instruction (2 Chr 17:9). (Andrew E. Hill, The NIV Application Commentary: 1 & 2 Chr, 479-80)
The question to be answered is . . . Why was Jehoshaphat so obsessed with making sure that the citizens of Judah receive an education in God’s Laws?
He is a miserable man who knows all things, and does not know God; and he is happy who knows God, even though he knows nothing else. — St. Augustine
Answer: Jehoshaphat understood that living under a theocracy as well as living in a world created by God, the constituents of Judah would be well served by understanding the Laws of God that govern the state in which they are citizens as well as the world in which they live. Besides, Jehoshaphat is so in love with the Lord and His ways that a team of mules could not have stopped him from evangelizing the people of Judah both verbally and non-verbally. He knew that if he could help the people to know God that they would love, serve, worship and obey God.
That is the trouble with the world, it does not know God. And the world will never be interested in the Christian message until it has some knowledge of God.
Oh, the church has been blind to this. She has been trying to attract people to herself for fifty years and more, putting on popular programmes, dramas, music, this that and the other, trying to entice people, especially young people, but they do not come. Of course not. They never will come until they know the name of the Lord, and then they will come. (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones; Revival, 309-10)
The essential issue is between the authority of autonomous man and of the Sovereign God. To allow God into the universe, provided that we open the door, is to say that the universe is our universe, and that our categories are decisive in human thinking. We can accept the Scriptures as inerrant and infallible on our terms, as satisfactory to our reason, but we have only established ourselves as god and judge thereby and have given more assent to ourselves than to God. But, if God be God, then the universe and man are His creation, understandable only in terms of Himself, and no meaning can be established except in terms of God’s given meaning. To accept miracles or Scripture on any other ground is in effect to deny their essential meaning and to give them a pagan import.
Thus, the consistent Christian position must be this: no God, no knowledge. Since the universe is a created universe, no true knowledge of it is possible except in terms of thinking God’s thoughts after Him. (Rousas J. Rushdoony, By What Standard?, 17)
The wisdom of the Spirit does not offer a supplement to the human mind, but challenges its autonomy at the roots. Knowledge that knows not God is folly, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We are not computers, nor is wisdom only data-storage and problem-solving. Fellowship with the living God, and with the Spirit who searches the deep things of God, frees us to seek and possess knowledge. Such spiritual wisdom combines theory and practice, word and life. (Edmund P. Clowney, The Church–Contours of Christian Theology, 143)
All the Puritans regarded religious feeling and pious emotion without knowledge as worse than useless. Only when the truth was being felt was emotion in any way desirable. When men felt and obeyed the truth they knew, it was the work of the Spirit of God, but when they were swayed by feeling without knowledge, it was a sure sign that the devil was at work, for feeling divorced from knowledge and urgings to action in darkness of mind were both as ruinous to the soul as was knowledge without obedience. So the teaching of truth was the pastor’s first task, as the learning of it was the layman’s. (J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, 70)
The Word for the Day is . . . impact
What did Jehoshaphat do because he gloriously knew and loved the Lord?:
Jehoshaphat’s name means “the Lord will rule [judge].” The account of the reign of Jehoshaphat seems to be governed by that same theme. All that he accomplished was based on the reality of a living God actively at work among His people, instructing them in the way they should go and defending them when they put their trust in Him. (John Sailhamer, Everyman’s Bible Commentary: 1 & 2 Chr, 91)
I. Jehoshaphat provided the people of Judah with verbal instruction. (2 Chr 17:7-9)
The need for public instruction pointed out plainly by a certain prophet, Azariah (15:1-7) evidently remained unmet. It was Jehoshaphat’s mission to correct their omission. (Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 3, 424)
Another point is the emphasis with which their function of teaching is thrice mentioned in three verses. Apparently the bulk of the nation knew little or nothing of “the law of the Lord,” either on its spiritual and moral or its ceremonial side; and Jehoshaphat’s object was to effect an enlightened, not a forcible and superficial, change. God’s way of influencing actions is to reveal Himself to the understanding and the heart, that these may move the will, and that may shape the deeds. Wise men will imitate God’s way. Jehoshaphat did not issue royal commands, but sent out teachers. (Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, 2 Kgs – Eccl, 159-60)
The people could not be expected to walk in God’s way if they had never been instructed in God’s will. Jehoshaphat was wise in seeing that instruction in the will of God must precede obedience. As he built walls to fortify his cities, so also be built spiritual walls to ensure obedience to God. Although those walls were not made of stone and mortar, they would still be standing long after the last bricks had crumbled in his fortified cities: “the word of our God stands forever” (Isa 40:8). Jehoshaphat’s concern is a clear example of the lesson of Solomon in Ps 127:1: “unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” (John Sailhamer, Everyman’s Bible Commentary: 1 & 2 Chr, 92)
Perhaps Jehoshaphat had learned from his father’s experience that commanding the people to obey God did not accomplish much if they were not given instruction in how to obey. The lesson plan for these itinerant teachers was the book of the Law–the five books of Moses, or the Pentateuch. (Broadman & Holman Pub, Shepherd’s Notes, 1, 2 Chr, 71)
He appears to surpass Rehoboam, Abijah, and Asa (at their best) in his zeal for the law. Not content with ensuring that official religious practices are correct and pure by eradicating idolatry (which had presumably crept back in in Asa’s declining years), v. 6, he undertakes the major task of spreading an understanding of the inherited faith among the common people. (J. G. McConville, The Daily Study Bible Series, 1 & 2 Chr, 178)
Jehoshaphat evidently has a pastor’s instinct. He knows that you cannot affect people’s hearts by imposing change from the top. (J. G. McConville, The Daily Study Bible Series, 1 & 2 Chr, 178)
This picture of a teaching king is almost without parallel in the OT. We think, of course, of David and the way he taught Israel to praise the Lord with inspired words fitted to music. We remember Solomon’s marvelous example and prayer on the day of the temple’s dedication. But Jehoshaphat goes beyond this. He organizes a delegation of his own officials, specially chosen Levites and priests, and sends them out “to all the towns of Judah” to do their work among the people (v. 9).
The composition of this delegation is interesting in itself. It is well known that God had given the priests primary responsibility for teaching people “the Law of the LORD” (Lv 10:11; 2 Chr 15:3; Jer 18:18; Hag 2:11). But here we see not only the Levites but even the king’s officials joining together with the priests on the same teaching mission. (Paul O. Wendland, The People’s Bible, 2 Chr, 200)
II. More importantly, Jehoshaphat provided the people of Judah with non-verbal instruction (2 Chr 17:3-6)
In due course we shall discover this man’s quiet reliance on the grace and power of God; but that is only half his faith. The other half is here: it is a faith which is “active along with his works,” and “completed by works.” He sees that grace operates through nature, and the God who governs Judah expects to do so through his human viceroy. (Michael Wilcock, The Message of Chr, 188)
Jehoshaphat was outstanding in the way in which as head of state he put the religious laws into effect. He heartily embraced the ancestral religion (17:3), following the example of David. Two striking expressions underscore this fact: “His heart was courageous in the ways of the LORD” (17:6) and the comment of Jehu the seer: “You . . . have set your heart to seek God” (19:3). The success of the public measures taken to restore the practice of Mosaic faith to the entire nation is summarized viz: “And he went out again among the people, from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim, and brought them back to the LORD, the God of their fathers” (19:4). (Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 3, 424)
The reign of Jehoshaphat appears to have been one of unusual religious activity. It was characterized, however, not so much by striking religious measures as it was by the religious spirit that pervaded every act of the king, who sought the favor of Yahweh in every detail of his life (2 Chr 17:3f.). He evidently felt that a nation’s character is determined by its religion. Accordingly, he made it his duty to purify the national worship. The “sodomites,” the male cult prostitutes of Canaanite worship, were banished from the land (1 Kgs 22:46). The Asherim were taken out of Judah (2 Chr 17:6; 19:3), and “the people from Beer-sheba to the hill country of Ephraim were brought back unto the Lord, the God of their fathers” (19:4). Because of his zeal for Yahweh, Jehoshaphat was rewarded with power and “riches and honor in abundance” (17:5). (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, 978)
In this way Jehoshaphat demonstrated himself to be a truly “pastoral” king. It is one thing to try to protect your people from outside dangers; it is another thing to pull down all the physical images and disgusting idols inside your own kingdom. But keeping worldly influence at bay and smashing stones and pillars will not protect anyone from the worldly power at work inside each one of us, the power of our own sinful selves. Only the Word of God can pull down idols from the high places of our hearts. (Paul O. Wendland, The People’s Bible, 2 Chr, 200)
We need God’s law to smash the idols of pride, to remove the high places dedicated to wealth and power, and to hew down the disgusting images of selfishness, greed, and illicit sexuality. But more so, we need God’s promises in Christ to give us comfort and rest from our anxious and accusing conscience, and to fortify us with joy and power through his matchless grace. How like Christ does Jehoshaphat show himself to be! (Paul O. Wendland, The People’s Bible, 2 Chr, 200-01)
The text catalogs a number of specific actions that made Jehoshaphat comparable to David. First, he sought the God of his father rather than the Baals (17:3). The Chronicler noted a number of times that David sought God (1 Chr 16:11; 22:19; 28:8-9). “Seeking” God for direction and help was one of the Chronicler’s highest ideals. The rejection of the Baals contrasts Jehoshaphat with the syncretism taking place in the North under the influence of Jezebel (see 1 Kgs 16:31-33; 18:4).
Second, the king’s heart was devoted to God (17:6). Whole-hearted commitment to the Lord frequently appears in Chronicles as a sincere service that is blessed by God. In this way as well, Jehoshaphat was likened to David whose sincere heart is highlighted a number of times (see 1 Chr 22:7, 9; 28:2, 9; 29:17-19).
Third, Jehoshaphat removed the high places . . . and the Asherah poles form Judah (17:6). Just as David had been devoted to centralizing worship in Jerusalem, Jehoshaphat destroyed the high places. The destruction of pagan worship sites and objects appears frequently in Chronicles as a sign of devotion to God (14:3-5; 17:6; 29:16; 31:1; 33:15; 34:3-7). (Richard L. Pratt, 1 & 2 Chr, A Mentor Commentary, 319-20)
Asa had shown himself weak against Israel, as he had sought help against Baasha’s attack from the Syrians (16:1ff.), but it was otherwise with Jehoshaphat. He indeed put the fenced cities of his kingdom in a thoroughly good condition for defense, to protect his kingdom against hostile attacks from without (v. 2); but he walked at the same time in the ways of the Lord, so that the Lord made his kingdom strong and mighty (vv. 3-5). This general characterization of his reign is in v. 6 illustrated by facts: first by the communication of what Jehoshaphat did for the inner spiritual strengthening of the kingdom, by raising the standard of religion and morals among the people (vv. 6-11), and then by what he did for the external increase of his power (vv. 12-19). (C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the OT, Vol. 3, 372)
Both the Old and New Testaments teach that the righteous are to love God and obey his commandments with a whole heart (Dt 6:5; 11:13; 26:16; Mt 22:37; Rom 1:9; Eph 6:6). Jehoshaphat’s “heart was devoted to the ways of the LORD” (2 Chr 17:6, at least “in his early years,” 17:3). The demonstration of wholehearted devotion to God is the removal of the symbols and practices of false worship so that the “high places and the Asherah poles” are purged from the land (17:6). Thus, “the LORD was with Jehoshaphat” (17:3), just as he was with Solomon (1:1), Abijah (13:12), and Asa (15:9). No doubt the Chronicler hopes his own audience will see the obvious pattern of divine presence and blessing conditioned by obedience to God’s law. (Andrew E. Hill, The NIV Application Commentary: 1 & 2 Chr, 479)
CONCLUSION/APPLICATION: Why should we care about knowing God and sharing our love of God with others?:
Down the centuries the Jews have taken to heart the solemn injunctions in Dt 6:7-9; 11:18-20, and have stressed that study of the faith should be a lifelong obligation. Christian practice tends to send the child to the church or Sunday school and let religious education end there. It is only too easy to learn to repeat “I believe in…,” but to make no sustained effort to apprehend the Creed more deeply. All too few persevere in studying the Bible. It is the duty of preachers to expound and commend the doctrines of the faith. But they cannot do justice to the greatness of those themes if most in the congregation have but the sketchiest biblical knowledge; for a teacher must to no small extent adapt his teaching to the comprehension of his hearers. Many preachers feel driven to all sorts of devices in order to produce merely interesting discourses with a minimum of educative matter. (Abingdon Press, The Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 3, 489)
God’s priests offer themselves because they offer their wills; they offer their wills because they love God; they love God because they know that God loves them. That is the divine order. It is vain to try to accomplish the end by any other. (Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, 2 Kgs – Eccl, 162-63)
A- Knowledge is fundamental to a saving faith in Christ (Ps 9:10; Rom 10:17; 2 Tm 3:15-17; Heb 4:12)
The Heidelberg Catechism — Questions #21 Q. What is true faith?
A. True faith is not only a knowledge and a conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true; it is also a deep-rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the gospel, that, out of sheer grace earned for us by Christ, not only others, but I too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation.” (Jn 17:3; Heb 11:1-3; Jas 2:19; Rom 4:18-21; 5:1; 10:10; Heb 4:14-16; Mt 16:15-17; Jn 3:5; Acts 16:14; Rom 1:16; 10:17; 1 Cor 1:21; Rom 3:21-26; Gal 2:16; Eph 2:8-10; Gal 2:20; Rom 1:17; Heb 10:10)
B- Knowledge of God promotes obedience of God (Ex 5:2; Ps 119:11, 33-34; Jn 14:15, 21-24; 15:9-10; 2 Thes 1:8; 1 Jn 2:5; 5:2-3; 2 Jn 1:5-6)
The quest for the lost soul of Christianity always leads us back to the Bible. But rediscovering the wonders of Scripture requires more than reading. That’s where the quest begins, but that’s not where it ends. Not if you want to get it into your soul. You have to meditate on it. Then you have to live it out. Meditating on it turns one-dimensional knowledge into two-dimensional understanding. Living it out turns two-dimensional understanding into three-dimensional obedience. (Mark Batterson, Primal, A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, 72)
“True knowledge of God is born out of obedience.” (John Calvin as quoted by Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, 156)
What was the principle that guided Eric Liddell’s Christian life, whether competing in the Olympics or serving on the mission field in China? In 1942, the last full year of his internment, he published a book called, “Prayers for Daily Use”. In it he wrote about obedience as the key to knowing God:
“OBEDIENCE to God’s will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight. It is not willingness to know, but willingness to DO (obey) God’s will that brings certainty.” (Foresee Vol. 32, No. 4, July/August 1999)
Did you know that when you carry “the Bible”, Satan has a headache, when you open it, he collapses, when he sees you reading it, he loses his strength, AND when you stand on the Word of God, Satan can’t hurt you!
Water is often used symbolically as the Word of God in Scripture (see Eph 5:26). When the Lord uses a natural type to symbolize a spiritual reality, it is because its characteristics reflect the nature of the spiritual. One important characteristic of water is that it must keep flowing in order to stay pure. Once it settles into one place it becomes stagnant very fast, and so does the Word of God. Every revelation of truth in our life should be continually expanding and deepening for us. That’s why the river of life is just that–a river! It is not a pond or a lake; it is flowing, moving, going somewhere. As an old sage once remarked, “You can never step into the same river twice.” (Rick Joyner, There Were Two Trees in the Garden, 178-79)
A few years ago I read something rather random, but I’ve never forgotten it: “Dynamic properties are not revealed in the static state.” Too many of us try to understand truth in the static state. We want to understand it without doing anything about it, but it doesn’t work that way. You want to understand it? Then obey it. Obedience will open the eyes of your understanding far more than any commentary or concordance could. I think many of us doubt Scripture simply because we haven’t done it. The way you master a text isn’t by studying it. The way you master a text is by submitting to it. You have to let it master you. (Mark Batterson, Primal, A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, 80-81)
Doing good is the only sure proof of spiritual life. Knowledge without practice is the character of the devil.” (J. C. Ryle; John: Vol 3, 29)
C- Knowledge of God promotes love of God and the world He created (Lk 7:47; 1 Pt 1:3-9; 2 Pt 1:2-4)
Now, it is this acquaintance with God that brings us into the knowledge of his character as a holy, loving, and faithful God; and it is this knowledge of his character that begets love and confidence in the soul towards him. The more we know of God, the more we love him; the more we try him, the more we confide in him. (Octavius Winslow, Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul, 98) (red bold emphasis Pastor Keith)
The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection. (John Milton, Of Education)
The more we know of God, the happier we are…When we became a little acquainted with God…our true happiness…commenced; and the more we become acquainted with him, the more truly happy we become. What will make us so exceedingly happy in heaven? It will be the fuller knowledge of God. (George Mueller, A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealing with George Muller, 2:740)
“In the end; we will conserve what we love, we will love what we understand, and we will understand what we have been taught.” —-Baba Dioun; African environmentalist
The Bible describes God’s people as having melody in their hearts, and one of His sweetest names is “The happy God.” Some people are afraid of becoming religious, lest they should be miserable; but they mistake the God in whose breast there is an ever-flowing heaven. The man who the most loves God is the happiest in disposition and the most cheerful as well as the most graceful in life. (Joseph S. Exell, The Biblical Illustrator, 2 Chronicles, 83)
A really devout man must be a propagandist. True faith cannot be hid nor be dumb. As certainly as light must radiate must faith strive to communicate itself. So the account of Jehoshaphat’s efforts to spread the worship of Jehovah follows the account of his personal godliness. “His heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord.” There are two kinds of lifted-up hearts; one when pride, self-sufficiency, and forgetfulness of God, raise a man to a giddy height, from which God’s judgments are sure to cast him down and break him in the fall; one when a lowly heart is raised to high courage and devotion, and “set on high,” because it fears God’s name. Such elevation is consistent with humility. It fears no fall; it is an elevation above earthly desires and terrors, neither of which can reach it, so as to hinder the man from walking in “the ways of the Lord.” This king was lifted to it by his happy experience of the blessed effects of obedience. These encouraged him to vigorous efforts to spread the religion which had thus gladdened and brightened his own life. (Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, 2 Kgs – Eccl, 157-58)
The Hebrew verb underlying “took delight” is an unusual one, as if the Chronicler was straining to portray the exceptional nature of the king’s spirituality. The verb means to be high, and elsewhere with “heart” it has the bad sense of a high and mighty attitude. Here it refers to his high ideals or spiritual ambition to follow God’s “ways,” especially as it corresponds to seeking God (v. 3). A similar expression in the NT occurs in the exhortation which may literally be rendered “Think high things” (“Set your mind on things above,” Col 3:2). (Leslie Allen, Mastering the OT, 1, 2 Chr, 293)
The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. — Ralph W. Sockman
No matter how much education and training we may receive in a certain field of study, we will discover that we have only learned scattered fragments of truth. On the other hand, the simplest Christian believer, who may have come into the kingdom only a few days ago, has already learned many marvelous things at the center of truth. That believer is able to confess that he knows God. Knowing God is potentially more than all of this world’s teachers could ever impart, because those teachers, if they are without God, are on the outside looking in. (A. W. Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship?, 63)
Wonder, rather than doubt, is the root of knowledge. —Abraham Heschel
“A person who has knowledge of doctrine and theology only—without religious affection—has never engaged in true religion.” —Jonathan Edwards
Gifts of a loving Creator, our bodies are not barriers to grace. If we could truly accept this, then we would know God even in the ambiguous delights of our sexuality. — Evelyn and James Whitehead
We find God in the contact of our bodies, not just in the longing of our souls. — Eveleyn and James Whitehead
A magnificent marriage begins not with knowing one another but with knowing God. — Gary and Betsy Ricucci
Nikola Tesla is the scientist who invented the method of generating electricity in what we call alternating current. Many people regard him as a greater scientific genius than the better known Alexander Graham Bell.
Author Philip Yancey tells an interesting antidote about Tesla. During storms Tesla would sit on a black mohair couch by a window. When lightening stuck, he would applaud—one genius recognizing the work of another. Tesla could appreciate better than anyone the wonder of lightning because he had spent years researching electricity.
In a similar way, the more we know God and his Word, the more deeply we will applaud his mighty deeds.
In his book Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot, Richard Restak shares a profound truism: learn more, see more. He says, “The richer my knowledge of flora and fauna of the woods, the more I’ll be able to see. Our perceptions take on richness and depth as a result of all the things that we learn. What the eye sees is determined by what the brain has learned.
When astronomers look into the night sky, they have a greater appreciation for the constellations and stars and planets. They see more because they know more. When musicians listen to a symphony, they have a greater appreciation for the chords and melodies and instrumentation. They hear more because they know more. When sommeliers sample a wine, they have a greater appreciation for the flavor, texture, and origin. They taste more because they know more.
Simply put: the more you know, the more you appreciate.
So what? Well, how much you know may have more to do with how much you love God than you think. Consider what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well: “You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship.” Another translation says, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know.” The Samaritans were worshiping God out of a lack of knowledge. And when you worship out of ignorance, worship is empty. God doesn’t just want you to worship Him; He wants you to know why you worship Him. (Mark Batterson, Primal, A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, 102-03)
D- Knowledge of God comes primarily through the Word of God (1 Sm 3:7; Jer 16:21; 24:7; 31:34; Rom 10:17; Gal 5:22; 1 Thes 3:12; 2 Thes 3:5; 2 Tm 1:7; 1 Jn 4:7-12)
In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin is so concerned about stressing the importance of knowledge as the first element in faith that he rightly presents it in another way, showing the necessary link between faith and the Word of God, or the Bible. Reduced to its basics, Calvin shows that: (1) faith is defined by God’s Word; (2) faith is born of God’s Word; and (3) faith is sustained by God’s Word. (James Montgomery Boice, An Expositional Commentary: Romans, Vol. 1, 391)
If we don’t know God as All that He reveals Himself, then you don’t know God at all. — Tim Keller
An elementary but correct way to think of God is as the One who contains all, who gives all that is given, but who Himself can receive nothing that He has not first given. (A. W. Tozer; The Knowledge of the Holy, 32)
The reason for this Bible centeredness is obvious: faith comes by hearing the word of God (Rom 10:17). It is by the word that we are born again (1 Pt 1:23-25). We grow by the “pure milk of the word” (2:2). We are sanctified by the truth of God’s word (Jn 17:17). God’s word is profitable and equips us for every good work (2 Tm 3:16-17). God’s word is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword…and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12). It is the sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17). It is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16; cf. 1 Cor 2:4; 1 Thes 1:5). It performs its work in us (2:13). It is “like fire…and like a hammer which shatters a rock” (Jer 23:29). It does not return void, God says, “without accomplishing what I desire, / and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it” (Is 55:11). (Philip Graham Ryken, Give Praise to God A Vision for Reforming Worship, 275)
God’s word must govern our knowledge of God, and thus its governance of worship is vital. Divine revelation must control our idea of God, but since worship contributes to our idea of God, the only way that God’s revelation can remain foremost in our thinking about God is if God’s revelation also controls our worship of God. God’s self-disclosure, his self-revelation, is to dominate our conception of him, and therefore God’s people are not to make images of God or the gods: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.” (Philip Graham Ryken, Give Praise to God A Vision for Reforming Worship, 30)
The word of God is truth. And we need to meditate or ruminate on truth until it becomes food for us. That is why Jesus said that His food was to do the will of His father and Jesus also echoed the words of Dt 8:3: In that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Are we taking in and chewing God’s word until it becomes food for our souls? I feel the reason so many of us are spiritually malnourished is because we are not taking in God’s Word like this. — paraphrase of Tim Keller
There can never be a true revival unless it comes in God’s way. And it will never come except through the continued declaration, “It is written.” There is in our day a neo-orthodoxy which is in reality a pseudo-orthodoxy because there is the attempt to establish the truth of some of the Christian doctrines without the underlying foundation of the authority of the Word of God. All such attempts are building upon the sand. The rock of the Scriptures must be the basis for all doctrine or there is no truth. (Donald Grey Barnhouse, Man’s Ruin, God’s Wrath, 209)
The Christian who is interested in knowing his God is the Christian who wants to know what God says about himself in the Bible. Such a Christian will not begin sentences with “I like to think of God as…” She has learned not to blend together a little New Age or a little Hinduism with a little Christianity in order to yield a custom-fitted deity for herself. No, the Christian church member who is serious about knowing God is the member who is committed to what the Bible says about God, because the Bible is where God tells us about himself. (Thabiti M. Anyabwile, What is a Healthy Church Member?, 28)
E- Pride, ignorance, and hard-heartedness discourage love and knowledge of God (Prv 1:7, 29; 9:10; Mt 6:24; 24:12; Lk 7:47; Jn 3:19; Rom 1:18-25; Col 1:10; 2 Pt 1:8; 1 Jn 2:15)
When a man is humbled by the law, and brought to the knowledge of himself, then follows true repentance (for true repentance begins at the fear and judgment of God), and he sees himself to be so great a sinner that he can find no means how he may be delivered from his sin by his own strength, endeavor and works. (Martin Luther; Galatians, 94)
As the author of the Theologia Germanica says, we may come to love knowledge of our knowing more than the thing known: to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the reputation they bring us. Every success in the scholar’s life increases this danger. If it becomes irresistible, he must give up his scholarly work. The time for plucking out the right eye has arrived. (C. S. Lewis; The Weight of Glory, 50)
Reader, if it be not strong upon thy heart to practice what thou readest, to what end dost thou read? To increase thy own condemnation? If thy light and knowledge be not turned into practice, the more knowing man thou art, the more miserable man thou wilt be in the day of recompense; thy light and knowledge will more torment thee than all the devils in hell. Thy knowledge will be that rod that will eternally lash thee, and that scorpion that will for ever bite thee, and that worm that will everlastingly gnaw thee; therefore read, and labor to know, that thou mayest do, or else thou art undone for ever. (Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 22)
“Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?” (Neil Postman; Amusing Ourselves to Death, 108)
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” — Tom Stowell
Philosophy and science have not always been friendly toward the idea of God, the reason being that they are dedicated to the task of accounting for things and are impatient with anything that refuses to give an account of itself. The philosopher and the scientist will admit that there is much that they do not know; but that is quite another thing from admitting that there is something which they can never know, which indeed they have no technique for discovering. To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries: this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage him. Yet how He eludes us! For He is everywhere while He is nowhere, for “where” has to do with matter and space, and God is independent of both. He is unaffected by time or motion, is wholly self-dependent and owes nothing to the worlds His hands have made. (A. W. Tozer; The Knowledge of the Holy, 27)
In preaching the biblical text, the preacher explains how the Bible directs our thinking and living. This brings the task of expository preaching into direct confrontation with the postmodern worldview and the simple fact of human sinfulness. We do not want to be told how to think or how to live. Each of us desires to be the author of our own life script, the master of our own fate, our own judge and lawgiver and guide.
But the word of God lays a unique and privileged claim upon the church as the body of Christ. Every text demands a fundamental realignment of our basic worldview and way of life. Thus, the church is always mounting a counterrevolution to the spirit of the age, and preaching is the God-ordained means whereby the saints are armed and equipped for this battle and confrontation. (Philip Graham Ryken, Give Praise to God A Vision for Reforming Worship, 114)
The great enemy of the Word of God is anything outside the Word of God…the word of Satan, the word of demons, the word of man. And we are living in very dangerous seasons concocted by seducing spirits and hypocritical liars propagated by false teachers. And here’s what makes them successful…look at [2 Tm 4] verses 3 and 4. “The time will come, and it does, it cycles through all of church history, when they will not endure sound doctrine.” People don’t want to hear sound doctrine. “Sound” means healthy, whole, wholesome. They don’t want wholesome teaching. They don’t want the sound, solid Word. They just want to have their ears tickled. That’s all they want. They’re driven by the sensual, not the cognitive. They’re not interested in truth. They’re not interested in theology. All they want is ear-tickling sensations. That’s what they want. They refuse to hear the great truth that saves and the great truth that sanctifies. And according to chapter 2 verse 16, they would rather hear worldly empty chatter that produces ungodliness and spreads like gangrene. (John MacArthur, www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/80-180_5-Reasons-to-Preach-the-Word, p. 6)
The love of God, however, is not merely an attribute which He displays: love is something God is. The apostle John concludes that lovelessness on the part of the individual is an indication that one does not know God, “because God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). Love, therefore, according the Carl Henry, “is not accidental or incidental to God; it is an essential revelation of the divine nature, a fundamental and eternal perfection.” (Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, VI:341) (C. Samuel Storms, The Grandeur of God, 129)
Our Lord Jesus Christ, with all the concern, compassion and love which he showed to mankind, made some very vivid portrayals of man’s condition. He did not mince words about the gravity of human sin. He talked of man as salt that has lost its savor (Mt 5:13). He talked of man as a corrupt tree which is bound to produce corrupt fruit (Mt 7:7). He talked of man as being evil: “You, being evil, know how to give good things to your children” (Lk 11:13). On one occasion he lifted up his eyes toward heaven and talked about an “evil and adulterous generation” (v. 45). In a great passage dealing with what constitutes true impurity and true purity he made the startling statement that out of the heart proceed murders, adulteries, evil thoughts and things of that kind (Mk 7:21-23). He spoke about Moses having to give special permissive commandments to men because of the hardness of their hearts (Mt 19:8). When the rich young ruler approached him, saying, “Good Master,” Jesus said, “there is none good but God” (Mk 10:18)…
Jesus compared men, even the leaders of his country, to wicked servants in a vineyard (Mt 21:33-41). He exploded in condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees, who were considered to be among the best men, men who were in the upper ranges of virtue and in the upper classes of society (Mt 23:2-39).
The Lord Jesus made a fundamental statement about man’s depravity in Jn 3:6: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” He saw in man an unwillingness to respond to grace–“You will not come to God” (Jn 5:40), “You have not the love of God” (v. 42), “You receive me not” (v. 43), “You believe not” (v. 47). Such sayings occur repeatedly in the Gospel of John. “The world’s works are evil” (Jn 7:7); “None of you keeps the law” (v. 19). “You shall die in your sins,” he says (Jn 8:21). “You are from beneath” (v. 23); “Your father is the devil, who is a murderer and a liar” (vv. 38, 44); “You are not of God” (v. 47); “You are not of my sheep” (Jn 10:26); “He that hates me hates my Father” (Jn 15:23-25). This is the way in which our Lord spoke to the leaders of the Jews. He brought to the fore their utter inability to please God.
Following another line of approach he showed also the blindness of man, that is, his utter inability to know God and understand him. Here again we have a whole series of passages showing that no man knows the Father but him to whom the Son has revealed him (Mt 11:27). He compared men to the blind leading the blind (Mt 15:14). He mentioned that Jerusalem itself did not know or understand the purpose of God and, as a result, disregarded the things that concern salvation (Lk 19:42). The Gospel of John records him as saying that he that believed not was condemned already because he had not believed on the Son of God (Jn 3:18). “This is the condemnation, that…men loved the darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (v. 19). He said that only the one who has been reached by grace can walk not in darkness but have the light of life (Jn 8:12). The Lord Jesus emphasized that it is essential for man to be saved by a mighty act of God if he is to be rescued from his condition of misery (Jn 3:3, 5, 7-16). Even in the Lord’s Prayer the Lord teaches us to say, “Forgive us our debts” (Mt 6:12). And this is a prayer that we need to repeat again and again. He said, “The sick are the people who need a physician” (Mt 9:12). We are those sick people who need a physician to help us and redeem us. He said that we are people who are burdened and heavy-laden (Mt 11:28).
The people who were most readily received by the Lord were those who had this sense of need and who therefore did not come to him with a sense of the sufficiency of their performance. The people he received were those who came broken-hearted and bruised with the sense of their inadequacy. (Roger R. Nicole, “The Doctrines of Grace in Jesus’ Teaching”)
The real trouble with man in sin is that he always wants to understand. The ultimate sin of man is pride of intellect. That is why it is always true to say that “not many wise men after the flesh, not many might, not many noble are called.” The wise man after the flesh wants to understand. He pits his brain against God’s wisdom, and he says, “I don’t see.” Of course he doesn’t. And Christ says to him, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3). If you think that with your mind, which is so small when you compare it with the mind of God, and which is not only small but also sinful, and perverted, and polluted, and twisted–if you think that with the mind you have you can comprehend the working of God’s eternal mind and wisdom, obviously you do not know God, you are outside the life of God, and you are lost. The first thing that must happen to you before you can ever become a Christian is that you must surrender that little mind of yours, and begin to say, “Of course I cannot understand it; my whole nature is against it. I can see that there is only one thing to do; I submit myself to the revelation that God has been pleased to give. (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 5, 251) (red bold emphasis Pastor Keith)
By logical syllogism we deduce a very important fact. If a person is not loving, John says, he or she does not know God. How will that individual become more loving, then? Can we grow in love by trying to love more? No, our attempts to love will only end in more frustration and less love. The solution, John implies, is to know God better. This is so simple that we miss it all the time: our means for becoming more loving is to know God better. (Marva J. Dawn, Truly the Community: Romans 12, 146)
You want to know what makes a person thankful? They think about their blessings. You want to know what makes a person hard-hearted and stiff-necked? They think about themselves.
The unique glory of Christ the man did not come from a negative struggle against warring forces within Him. It came from an unquestioning surrender to God. And the way open to the Christian is the same. By his knowledge of Christ, he knows what God is like. Only by an act of the will, only by a surrender of his whole being to God, can he make a start toward becoming what, on a smaller scale, he is meant to be–an alter Christus. (Chad Walsh, Early Christians of the 21st Century, 71)
An old black woman in the Deep South put suffering in proper perspective when she said, “If the mountain was smooth, you couldn’t climb it.” Everything God has caused or allowed in your life is for your good–to draw you into a deeper love relationship with him. Your sufferings are not merely setbacks. They are also springboards to the crucial task of knowing God well enough that you can trust him. We must learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can look the darkest fact full in the face without damaging God’s character, we do not yet know him as he is. (Patrick Morley; Ten Secrets for the Man in the Mirror, 74)
“The right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping…You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.” (The Quotable C. S. Lewis, 268)
It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer. The truth is that in order to enjoy the Word, we ought to continue to read it, and the way to obtain a spirit of prayer is to continue praying. The less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray. (A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Muller).
“They that know God will be humble,” John Flavel has said, “and they that know themselves cannot be proud.” (quoted in MBI’s Today in the World, November, 1989, 20)
The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is—in itself a monstrous sin—and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness. Always this God will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges. (A. W. Tozer; The Knowledge of the Holy, 3)
The rabbis believed that humility was an indispensable condition for learning: “Just as water flows away from a high point and gathers at a low point, so the word of God only endures with the learner who is humble in his knowledge.” (Babylonian Talmud, Taanit 7a) (Ann Spangler, Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, 60)
The humblest of us, in a state of Grace, can have some “knowledge-by-acquaintance” (connaître), some “tasting,” of Love Himself; but man even at his highest sanctity and intelligence has no direct “knowledge about” (savoir) the ultimate Being–only analogies. We cannot see light, though by light we can see things. Statements about God are extrapolations from the knowledge of other things which the divine illumination enables us to know. (C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 126)
F- Knowledge of God’s gracious love increases proportionally with the knowledge of your sinfulness (Lk 7:47)
We have been made for relationship with God. Therefore it is not surprising that we long to meet and know God. But the God we seek is the God we want, not the God who is. We fashion a god who blesses without obligation, who lets us feel his presence without living his life, who stands with us and never against us, who gives us what we want, when we want it. We worship a god of consumer satisfaction, hoping the talismans of guitars and candles or organs and liturgy will put us in touch with God as we want him to be. (Mark Labberton, The Dangerous Act of Worship, 65-66)
There is also a link between repentance and the knowledge of the truth, without which none can be saved. Paul advised Timothy to be “kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tm 2:24-25). (Robert Roberts; Repentance, 70)
Self is a great let to divine things; therefore the prophets and apostles were usually carried out of themselves, when they had the clearest, choicest, highest, and most glorious visions. Self-seeking blinds the soul that it cannot see a beauty in Christ, nor an excellency in holiness; it distempers the palate, that a man cannot taste sweetness in the word of God, nor in the ways of God, nor in the society of the people of God. It shuts the hand against all the soul-enriching offers of Christ; it hardens the heart against all the knocks and entreaties of Christ; it makes the soul as an empty vine, and as a barren wilderness: “Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit to himself” (Hos 10:1). There is nothing that speaks a man to be more empty and void of God, Christ, and grace, than self-seeking. (Thomas Brooks; Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 189)
T. S. Eliot once dryly remarked, “All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.” In other words, the more we learn, the smaller we feel. (David Jeremiah, Searching for Heaven on Earth, 23)
Among all created beings, not one dare trust in itself. God alone trusts in Himself; all other beings must trust in Him. Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust not in the living God but in dying men. The unbeliever denies the self-sufficiency of God and usurps attributes that are not his. This dual sin dishonors God and ultimately destroys the soul of the man. (A. W. Tozer; The Knowledge of the Holy, 35)
James calls Christians to “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (Jas 1:21). Implicit in James’ instruction is a distinction between an ungodly life of filthiness and wickedness and the Christ-like life of humility or meekness. Christians should receive the Word of God with meekness. That is, in the preaching of God’s Word and in the Scripture, acknowledging it as the source of salvation and instruction in godly living. As we come to the Scripture, we are to do so as people knowing our sinful nature, our spiritual poverty before God, and our need for the molding influence of God, which comes normally by his Word. (Thabiti M. Anyabwile, What is a Healthy Church Member?, 77)
Preaching the Word of God involves pain–for both preacher and hearers. What flows through one person’s mouth into the heart of another, after all, is the Word of the wholly other God, and that’s bound to create a disturbance along the way. (Donald W. McCullough, The Trivialization of God, 127)
We alone of living beings have to cooperate in making ourselves, in gaining for ourselves true existence.
Even certain common idioms show our awareness of this truth. G.K. Chesterton once observed that you might slap a man on the shoulder who was drinking too heavily and say, “Be a man!”, but it would be pointless to tell a recalcitrant crocodile to “be a crocodile.” It can’t fail to be a crocodile. But we can fail to be men and women, fail to be human. For the human being is made in God’s image to love and serve his maker and his fellows. And if a thing fails of its essential purpose, it fails to exist. A fire which fails to burn is not a fire. A seat which collapses when you sit on it is for practical purposes no longer a seat.
That is why we need education while animals do not. A lamb will skip about on its legs soon after it is born. A human baby needs two or more years and a good deal of patient tuition to get to that stage. We have heard how a child brought up in India among wolves walked naturally on all fours. It is within the choice of any of us to walk or not to walk. A lamb separated from its mother and its flock and brought up as a domestic pet might make a very nice tame companion, but it would not begin to walk on two legs, even if you tried to teach it. Nor would it forget its bleating and learn to speak. Men and women can virtually turn into animals, but even faithful and friendly dogs and horses stop well short of turning into human beings. The better they are as dogs and horses, the more we like them.
And the more human beings are, the more we approve of them. Education is, or ought to be, the process that turns us into fully human beings. Which means that it will try to turn us into the beings God made us to be.
It is a grave thing to say, but “secular education” is a contradiction in terms. True education would try to mold us in the image of Christ. It would insist that no progress in any sphere of knowledge or activity can be a substitute for learning to know, to love, and to serve God. And such knowledge, such love, and such service are the gifts of grace. “By Grace ye are saved,” St. Paul said. By grace alone can we become human.
That is why civilization is now in danger of returning to the jungle. (Harry Blamires; On Christian Truth, 71-72)
Worship point: The more you know God the more your worship of God will be in spirit and in truth.
We need to ask ourselves if we have received a changed heart by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This sort of self-examination is a spiritually healthy thing to do. In fact, this is what the apostles often exhorted their readers to do (2 Cor 13:5; Phil 2:12; 2 Pt 1:5-11). The first order of business is to know our own souls. Are we trusting in the finished work of Christ alone for our salvation? Is there evidence of God’s grace in our lives? Are we growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-24), and in the virtues mentioned in Christ’s beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12)? (Thabiti M. Anyabwile, What is a Healthy Church Member?, 50-51)
Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness. — Blaise Pascal
“Christians are called to a life of habitual repentance, as a discipline integral to healthy holy living…conversion must be continuous…There has to be for all of us some form of entry into the converted state, in which none of us is found by nature…But there is more: following from ‘the hour I first believed,’ conversion must now become a lifelong process. Conversion has been defined from this standpoint as a matter of giving as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of God. This means that our knowledge of God and ourselves grows (and the two grow together), so our conversion needs to be repeated and extended constantly.” (J. I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness, 121, 139, 140)
See we have not arrived at this, that from this arid night there first of all comes self-knowledge, whence, as from a foundation, rises this other knowledge of God. For which cause Saint Augustine said to God: “Let me know myself, Lord, and I shall know Thee.” For as the philosophers say, one extreme can be well known by another. (St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 80)
Spiritual Challenge: Know the Lord. You cannot truly know the Father until you know yourself. And you cannot truly know yourself until you know the Father. Ask and keep on asking. Seek and keep on seeking. Knock and keep on knocking. Endeavor to know the Father like Jesus knew God. To the point where you are conformed to the likeness of Jesus . . . one with the Father. God in you and you in God.
A scientist may say that mother’s milk is the most perfect food known to man, and may give you an analysis showing all its chemical components, a list of the vitamins it contains and an estimate of the calories in a given quantity. A baby will take that milk without the remotest knowledge of its content, and will grow day by day, smiling and thriving in its ignorance. So it is with the profound truths of the word of God. (Donald Grey Barnhouse; Man’s Ruin: Romans 1:1-32, 3 as quoted in John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, xi)
Maybe it’s time to admit that we don’t know all the answers. But we know the One who does. Maybe we’ve been offering the wrong thing. We offer answers. God offers a relationship through Jesus Christ. His answer to our questions isn’t knowledge. It’s a relationship. And that relationship is the answer to every question. (Mark Batterson, Primal, A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, 106)
What the world needs is not knowledge; it is not teaching; it is not information; it is not medical treatment; it is not psychotherapy; it is not social progress; it is not punishment, even. It is none of these things.
What men and women need is a new heart, a new nature, a nature that will hate darkness and love the light, instead of loving the darkness and hating the light. They need an entire renovation, and, blessed be the name of God, it is the very thing that God offers in and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Son of God came and took unto himself human nature. He united it to himself in order that he night give us that nature. (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones; God’s Way, Not Ours: Isaiah 1, 67)
No God — No Peace. Know God — Know Peace.
Quotes to Note:
“To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end itself, to approach Bible study with no higher motive than to desire to know all the answers, is the direct rout to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it.” (J. I. Packer; Knowing God, 17)
We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. (A. W. Tozer; The Knowledge of the Holy, 1)
The first point to be noted in this passage is that Jehoshaphat followed in the steps of Asa his father. Stress is laid on his adherence to the ancestral faith, “the first ways of his father David,”–before his great fall,–and the paternal example, “he sought to the God of his father.” Such carrying on of a predecessor’s work is rare in the line of kings of Judah, where father and son were seldom of the same mind in religion. The principle of hereditary monarchy secures peaceful succession, but not continuity of policy. Many a king of Judah had to say in his heart what Ecclesiastes puts into Solomon’s mouth, “I hated all my labor,…seeing that I must leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?”
But it is not only in king’s houses that that experience is realized. Many a home is saddened today because the children do not seek the God of their fathers. “Instead of the fathers” should “come up thy children”; but, alas! Grandmother Lois and mother Eunice do not always see the boy who has known the Scriptures from a child grow up into a Timothy, in whom their unfeigned faith lives again. The neglect of religious instruction in professedly Christian families, the inconsistent lives of parents or their too rigid restraints, or, sometimes, their too lax discipline, are to be blamed for many such cases. But there are many instances in which not the parents, but the children, are to be blamed. An earnest Sunday school teacher may do much to lead the children of godly parents to their father’s God. Blessed is the home where the golden chain of common faith finds hearts together, and family love is elevated and hallowed by common love of God! (Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, 2 Kgs – Eccl, 155-56)
Jehoshaphat’s teaching mission portrays him in the light of the ideal king of Dt 17:18-20. It is an ideal of royal responsibility for law and justice which is pervasive in the ancient Near East (Whitelam, Just King, 17-38, 207-18). The teaching duty of the cultic personnel is well established in biblical tradition (Dt 33:10; Lv 10:11; Jer 18:18; Mal 2:7; Hos 4:6; cf. 2 Chr 15:3). Though the five officials would have served primarily as representatives of the crown, their presence assigns and legitimates a teaching role also for laity. The Chronicler’s interest in the lay members may reflect the practice of the emergent synagogues in the post-exilic period. (Raymond B. Dillard, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 15, 134)
The NT also speaks of teaching missions commissioned by Israel’s king. Jesus sent out the seventy (Lk 10:1-24; cf. 3 Jn 5-8); the resurrected Christ commissions his disciples to teach among the nations (Mt 28:19-20). (Raymond B. Dillard, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 15, 136)
Jehoshaphat comes closer perhaps than any other king in Judah or Israel to the ideal of the leader who is subject to the law himself and who desires to make it the ruling principle in his land.
Very significant is the fact that it is his princes who are charged with the task of teaching, although of course they are accompanied by priests and Levites who may be regarded as the technical experts. But the role of the princes, who were not in any sense dynastic, but rather officials appointed by Jehoshaphat himself, shows that this king was prepared to organize his whole kingdom for the purpose of propagating the law. So often the leaders in Israel were castigated by the prophets for arrogating to themselves power which should have been used for this very purpose. And indeed the acquisition of the authority which is necessary to the exercise of responsibility can so easily have a corrupting effect upon weak human beings. Here, however, is a picture of power used selflessly and utterly responsibly. It behooves every Christian to ask himself whether he turns such influence as he has to his own advantage or to the good of others–supremely to the cause of propagating the truth about God in Jesus Christ. (J. G. McConville, The Daily Study Bible Series, 1 & 2 Chr, 179)
The Chronicler introduced the reign of Jehoshaphat in a positive light to draw attention to the significance of the king’s failure that followed (18:29; 19:1-3). God had secured Judah against northern Israel because Jehoshaphat had been faithful to teach and enforce the Law of Moses. These blessings only made his later alliance with the North that much more difficult to justify. (Richard L. Pratt, 1 & 2 Chr, A Mentor Commentary, 321)
Several times in this opening section of the summary of Jehoshaphat’s reign the Chronicler establishes direct or indirect continuity with King Asa (e.g., by noting the towns of Ephraim captured by Asa, 17:2; by indicating that he follows the God of his father and commands of his father, 17:4; and by his removal of the high places, 17:6). The purpose is to present Jehoshaphat as a good and upright king like his father Asa (cf. 14:2). It is important for the Chronicler to highlight the spiritual continuity from one generation to the next because the Lord is with his people (17:3) to the extent that they seek him and follow his commands (17:4). (Andrew E. Hill, The NIV Application Commentary: 1 & 2 Chr, 478)
“They that know God will be humble, and they that know themselves cannot be proud. — John Flavel
Christ:
The Way Truth and Life
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