Tense Logic
“but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works; that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me,” John 10:38
Know and Understand – Greek is very precise about time and action. When a Greek sentence wishes to convey two different temporal circumstances in the same phrase, all that is required is a change in the tense. Unfortunately, English lacks some of this precision and as a result, we are often shortchanged. We think that this phrase “know and understand” consists of two different words in the same temporal frame. But it doesn’t. It is the same word used twice, once in a verb tense that tells us the action is completed in the past and once in a verb tense that tells us the action keeps on going in the present. This little bit of grammar makes us as the question, “Why?” Here’s the answer:
When Jesus says that the skeptic is able to believe when he sees the works, Jesus does not mean, “come to believing faith”. That is not the purpose. Jesus uses a word that means “acknowledge”. In other words, when the doubter sees that the works glorify and exhibit God’s interaction with men, he will acknowledge that there is something here worth considering. He might not accept Jesus as the Christ, but he will be ready to think about it. So, says Jesus, the next stage in the process is “to know and understand”. Here is the word ginosko, first in the past completed tense (he will know it for sure as an already finished act) and then in the present tense (he will continue to know it as it impacts his present). Leon Morris says that Jesus is looking for two things: a moment of insight and a continuing understanding.
Your work can have the same two-step significance. It can provide that moment of insight when an observer suddenly realizes that you and God are connected in some important and unusual way. He never thought about work like this but suddenly the light goes on. God is here. Then comes the next stage; the daily enlightenment, the practice of the presence, the slow illumination as the works begin to reshape reality so that it looks a lot like God’s point of view.
Today’s Word is this kind of work. Stage One – an insight. A moment when suddenly you see something that you didn’t realize was buried in the text. Stage Two – you make it a part of your living experience. Now you will never think about work and worship the old way. Now you have a new action plan. Know and understand!
