IS THERE NO KNOWING?

II Thessalonians 2

 

How do we know what we know?  Why do we think what we think?  Can anything really be known with certainty?  These are just a few of the questions that philosophers have been debating for millennia.  While the majority of philosophers agree that some sort of truth exists, most philosophers also agree that humans have a hard time getting their minds around it.  In technical language, truth is sort of wibbly wobbly.

 

Wibbly wobbly, indeed.  And philosophers don't even know the half of it.  They see that humans are affected by their own perceptions.  But they don't understand that humans are actively being deceived by Satan.  They know that humans filter information through their own assumptions.  But they don't know that humans have some kinds of understanding hidden from them by God.

 

Lies. Deception. Hiddenness. Mystery.  These are all aspects of the human experience.  It should make us humble.

 

Until Jesus returns, we will always only know "in part" (I Cor. 13:12). But it's the part that we need to know.  God's not only the God who hides, he's also the God who speaks.  God's the revealer of mysteries.  He's communicated to us all we need to know in order to live in the world we have.  It should make us hopeful.

 

Our part in all of this is to "stand firm and keep a strong grip on the teaching" passed on to us.  The Thessalonians are an example of how easy it is to lose grip.  They were taught the information they needed, but apparently they had forgotten it.  How human!  We all need to be taught.  We all need to be reminded.  We all need to be putting into practice the truths we hear and read.    

 

God's solid word and our strong grip of it.  This is how we stand firm in an unstable world.