Information = rubbish

Information cannot make us better people. This truth came as a disappointment to me when I realised it very recently, as I have spent the great majority of my life so far (25 years and counting) ammassing more and more information; some of it useful, most of it banal and redundant. I even went to a University to learn about God. As if I could learn much about God through a degree!

Most of us have idealised the faculties of knowing. It makes us feel good when we know something as it gives us an immediate ego reward. Those of us of western extraction have placed the rational on a pedestal. We want to know where someone went to school before we trust them in any major office.

The same is true in the church. The protestant tradition has taken this to the extreme with a huge emphasis on preaching. Now I think preaching is a very good thing, but true preaching is not the mere discussion or transmission of ideas and ideals. True preaching and true faith is a life lived towards God with all of our being.

The New Testament shows us both the limited importance and the limitation of head-knowing. Jesus works as if his actions are as important as his words. In fact, his verbal preaching was often simply an explanation of what he was doing. Paul puts it more directly;

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." (Phil 3.7-9)

In comparison to 'knowing Christ Jesus' all things are to be considered rubbish. Whilst we should continue to seek to know about God it is far more important that we know God. This kind of faith requires all of our faculties to be presented to God as one.