Enlightenment

For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. I Corinthians 1:21

Did Not Come To Know – A difficult verse to translate.  A difficult phrase too.  It is ouk egno ho kosmos dia tes sophias tou theon.  You can spot the word wisdom (sophia) and God (theon), but the problem is the combination of words in this phrase.  Ouk egno is the strong negative with the verb ginosko.  This means never knew.  It was impossible to know in this way.  What way is that?  Well, Greek has two principal words for “to know,” oida and ginosko.  The difference is that oida is associated with intuitive understanding, revealed truth and knowledge that comes from the essence of the subject.  I know that I am a man because I am a human male.  I do not know in the same way that an animal knows because I do not have animal instincts.  (I’m sorry, but no man will ever see like an eagle or smell the scent of prey like a wolf.)  Ginosko is knowledge that comes via acquisition.  I gather the facts.  I examine the evidence.  I draw conclusions.  This is knowledge from outside of me.

Now notice what Paul says.  The knowledge gathered from acquiring information in the world never led to God.  This is a startling claim.  It throws cold water on all our apologetics.  It destroys natural theology (the doctrine that God can be seen in the design of the universe).  But the Bible seems to teach a natural theology and Paul himself was an apologist.  What in the world can Paul mean?

Put the verse in its context.  Paul has just been speaking about the disunity caused by claims of hierarchical authority.  He follows this chastisement with examples of foolishness, using three classes of religious men.  Then he draws this conclusion.  All of the information gathered by religious people did not produce relationship with God.  It produced massive collections of commentaries.  It brought about great theories and doctrines.  It demonstrated that men can know a lot about God, but in the end, it did not provide intimacy with God.  Information is useless until it results in relationship.  From Paul’s perspective, what matters is “Christ crucified, the hope of glory.”  Certainly there were plenty of people in Paul’s purview who had all the background, all the education and all the right references of the religious majority.  But they didn’t know the God who sent His Son in the form of a man to die on the cross.  That was sheer idiocy.  God dying for us?  You’ve got to be joking!  Impossible.  Outrageous!

Our collected knowledge often stands in the way of God’s revealed truth.  As my friend Bob says, “There are two great hurdles to knowing God:  what we already know and what we already believe.”  Many believers cannot put aside wisdom from the world in order to hear the voice of the Lord.  This isn’t wisdom garnered from the pagans.  This is wisdom they gained from the religious community.  Accumulating information never leads to comfort in His arms.  Just ask me.  I’m the guy with five degrees.

Topical Index:  know, oida, ginosko, relationship, information, 1 Corinthians 1:21