An Assertion on the Christian Life

The point of all the posts on Knowledge is the basis for a simple assertion. If we desire as the body of Christ to effect the most growth in spiritual maturity of the most believers; then reduce Christianity to its simple core, the gospel message of redemption from sin through the cross and living in the fullness of the in-dwelling Christ made possible through the resurrection. All other discussions, though interesting perhaps, quickly erode into winds of doctrine and a fractured family of God. Christ in us is the hope of glory, but our understanding of glory should not be a compartmentalized belief that makes the glory of God a platitude existing in the next life. Christ living in us and our recognizance of plus obedience to that reality is the glorious answer of God to the mayhem around us.

Intellectual knowledge of the natural world, though useful for participating in the culture through gainful employment or otherwise, is not the end of human experience. In the eternal perspective of things, the brain is but a tool to be developed and utilized, nothing more. We Christians run a muck as a consequence of equating an intellectual understanding of the Word with spiritual knowledge; or worse, equating subjective, personal understanding of the Word with all its inherent problems of a wavy lens--individual perspective--as spiritual knowledge. While intelligent exegesis is rightly accepted as superior to common conclusion in understanding the meanings of texts, spiritual knowledge is not an automatic result of intelligent thinking over subjective personal perspective for the simple reason that none of us escapes our own subjectivity. Human knowledge and wisdom, even that which builds its rationalizations on the Bible is of no value in the larger framework of eternity. The mind and heart of Christ known through the in-dwelling Christ, the Holy Spirit, is the only source of truth and wisdom available to us within the paradigm of the current natural existence.

It probably goes without saying but as a balanced writer I cannot shirk the responsibility of stating that no carnal knowledge, that which is known through muscle and bone or the related drives of hunger, thirst and libido, is the source of spiritual knowledge. It's a given these are all part of the natural life, but you will hear no call to asceticism nor epicureanism from me. Living to please the body or subdue it reduces the quality of life rapidly in the best case scenario and is a path to madness in the worst. We were never intended to live as animals do through competitive instinct fulfilling a need to survive. When the source of our soul's satisfaction is based on our carnal natures, the reason why we live results in philosophies which rationalize barbarism and/or paganism as logical and fulfilling.

Spiritual knowledge isn't learned by listening to sermons, though certainly teaching has its place and I do not suggest discarding any gift God intended for us. Spiritual knowledge is that which we learn through Christ as our active teacher, a function of us walking in the faith that the Holy Spirit is within us as He said He would be. (You gotta love the way the three persons of God wreak havoc on personal pronoun usage.)