knowledge vs knowing

Recently I had the joy to catch up with my home pastors from Guatemala. They are originally from Vancouver (from the Chinese Alliance Church), and they served in the missionary field for many years. During my high school years (very long ago), they both influenced me a lot in my early spiritual walk, and I learned so much from them. Actually, now that I look back, I can actually appreciate more the lessons they taught me.

It was great to meet up with them, and to be able to catch up like friends. Even though they are far older than me (finally I felt young for once!), we were able to share with joy what's going on in our lives. More importantly, we are connected with the love of Christ, and that is a bond that we as fellow brothers and sisters are privileged to have.

As pastors, they deal with a lot of church issues (we are sinners, and there will be issues in a community), so I was sad to hear about a brother that recently left the church in Guatemala. He is a very smart person, and soon after he became a Christian, his knowledge in the bible grew a lot. He was commended in my home church as the brother who possesses a vast theological knowledge. And apparently he had read through the whole bible several times (in Spanish and English, not sure about Chinese).

He was in charge of many important church ministries, but he suddenly notified the board members that he will be leaving (in a month). And now he and his family is going to another church. The part that saddens me is that he will still attend the men's group, and criticize and accuse my home church... making comments like "I was never edified in the last x years", causing grieve and disruptions among the group of men.

Perhaps I lack the general context of this whole scenario. I have nothing against people switching churches, but the fact that he is talking bad about the church with the group of men is not loving at all. For sure, I can point out many shortcomings from my home church, and some of this had hurt me in the past, but the proper response is not to talk bad. The reality is that we are all sinners, and it is natural that issues will arise. The difference is that we as Christians understand that we have been forgiven, that our transgressions against the Holy God have been removed, because of the great sacrifice of Christ. And because of this, we are empower to forgive others' transgressions towards us (Col. 3:13). We are to extend God's grace towards others. This applies to all context of relationships (marriage, family, friends, church).

What I am really trying to get at is that there is gap between knowledge and knowing about living the Christian life. The sheer knowledge of theological truths might not do anything good if it just sits in my intellect. Actually, for me I find it dangerous at times because the more knowledge I gain can make me more prideful, and I have tendency of looking down to others. This is not good.

The reason why we want to gain more knowledge of theological truths is that we can get a better understanding of our great God, and be marveled for His greatness, so that we cannot anything else but to bow down and worship Him. So we need to internalize this knowledge in our hearts, and really "know" Him more and more.

On a similar note, I want to share this message from Francis Chan, who speaks about how to stay humble: