How can you love Jesus if you don’t know what He’s been doing?
The first rumblings of a niggling thought started the day Elisabeth Elliot went on to be with the Lord. I was sharing in cell group that night, and as an example of a person who had given up all for God, I mentioned her because, well, she’d been on my facebook feed.
No one in cell group had heard of her.
Never mind, I thought. That’s just a bit of church history that’s not really quite relevant to us here in Malaysia.
A while after that, in some random conversation, someone brought up something about Moses and the plagues — I think, I can’t quite remember now — and to my surprise, it was the non-Christian in the group who answered the question with mostly correct details. I verified his answer whilst another colleague (a Baptist) floundered, ending up being the one asking questions about Bible stories to someone who isn’t even of the faith.
I wasn’t sure what to think of that except: well, now that was awkward.
More recently, during a car ride to lunch, a Buddhist friend asked whether Christians believed in hell. There were 3 Christians in the car, including me. Two of us said yes. The other was unsure, and finally said no.
In my head, two phrases came to mind:
They will be cast into utter darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
and
He (Satan, I think) will be cast into the lake of fire.
I was puzzled as to why that other friend of mine would conclude that there is no hell. Then again, it’s a theological issue, I suppose, and the Westernised version of hell that keeps coming up in jokes and comics (like Peter and the Pearly Gates) don’t do much to inform people of the truth. I don’t know if we even do have a solid truth of what “hell” is like, even as there are arguments about “heaven”.
I’m not a Bible scholar. I don’t read Hebrew or Greek or do exegesis. I flip between versions according to my mood — NIV if I want an easy read, KJV if I want something poetic, NASB when I’m reading in hardcopy, Amplified if I feel like reading a bunch of words. I only read up on Church history when someone is quoted or when I’m sucked down a rabbit hole of “research” or some interesting articles/blog posts appear on my feed.
I often find myself wishing that I were more theologically inclined, or at least less lazy to think so hard.
Yet the lack of Bible — and Church history — knowledge amongst Christians worries me.
If you fell in love with someone, wouldn’t you want to find out all there is to know about that person? If you say you know the truth, wouldn’t you want to study it from every angle so that you have all your bases covered?
If you say you love Jesus, why wouldn’t you want to know what He’s been doing and saying throughout the ages?
I don’t expect that any of us will ever know everything about God while we are still here on earth. I don’t expect that any of us will be able to read or remember all that God has been doing in the Church. I don’t believe that we will come to the exact same conclusions on any theological matter. There will always be places where we would have to agree to disagree.
But I would expect you to want to know. I would expect you to still be seeking. I would expect that you would be able to engage in a discussion — whether or not you have conclusive data — and that you would at least have a working surface-level knowledge of the Bible!
I’m beginning to wonder if this is actually too much to ask.
