By Dr. Kenneth Quick, Director of Consulting, Blessing Point Ministries.
Though 2020 has been extremely challenging for the Quicks, with Diane’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent chemo and surgery, all happening while the pandemic swept the country, I have found joy in my “Jubilee” year spiritually. It has been 50 years since my conversion to Christ (May 7, 1970). As a part of my personal celebration, I returned to some old devotionals I had not cracked open in decades. I started with Andrew Murray’s The Spirit of Christ. I have been blown away by both his wisdom and its relevance.
I find Murray to be like a “sower of seed”, tossing “seed ideas” into my heart that grow and bear fruit as I ponder them further. I would like to share one that particularly gripped me. In his chapter entitled “Truth to Live By”, he says:
God created man in his image—to become like Himself, capable of holding fellowship with Him in His glory. In the Garden two ways were presented to man for attaining this likeness to God. These were typified by the two trees—that of life and that of knowledge. God’s way was the former—through life the knowledge and likeness of God would come.
By abiding in God’s will and partaking of God’s life, man would be perfected. In recommending the other, Satan assured man that knowledge was the one thing to be desired to make us like God…. The desire to know became his greatest temptation. His whole nature was corrupted, and knowledge was to him more than obedience and more than life. Under the power of this deceit that promises happiness in knowledge, the human race is still led astray (The Spirit of Christ, pp. 101-102).
This grabbed hold of my attention. As one whose spiritual gift is pastor/teacher and who spent 23 years as a pastor and 17 more teaching at an evangelical seminary, deeper knowledge has always been a main pursuit. I have been an active student of the Word, spending time in it each day digging and grappling to learn more. But I believe what Murray says is true. Its repercussions are seen in most churches, seminaries, and our personal lives. We study, read Christian books, watch videos, or sit in church to gain knowledge, thinking that knowledge will help us become godly. That is exactly what Satan promised Eve!
Have you ever been struck by the fact that we have more Bible translations now, more Christians books, more Christian podcasts, more Bible studies, etc. than ever before in history, and the Church is weaker, more susceptible to error, more quickly led astray, putting our faith in politicians and spiritual charlatans who use us for their own purposes and enrichment? How can it be?
Perhaps the better question is, what is the alternative? The simple answer is the other Tree. Now we don’t know what would have happened if our first parents had taken that path, but I believe God gives us a hint by the use of the word “know” in Gen. 4:1: “And Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived…”. True “knowing/knowledge” has to do with relational intimacy and oneness, something which requires faith and trust to experience in its fullness, and fruitfulness/new life is the result. The result of partaking from the Tree of Knowledge was distance, barriers, fear, guilt, and shame.
Our time in or under God’s Word is to be primarily a relational exercise, not a mental one. We are to come to it seeking life, not more knowledge in the way we normally think of it. The inner organ that should most feel its impact and hear God’s Voice is not our brains but our hearts—every time! “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Ps. 95:7; Heb. 3:15; 4:7). If we as believers came to church and came to the Scriptures that way, God’s glory and Christ’s Presence would transform us because we would be sharing in the “life” that God came to give us. Let’s seek growing life, not just expanding knowledge, in 2021.
Dr. Kenneth Quick is Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology at Capital Seminary, an arm of Lancaster Bible College. He authored, Healing the Heart of your Church, Body Aches, and coauthored The Dance of the Gifts and The Eighth Letter. He was previously a pastor for 23 years.
Thank you this is very inspiring.
As one who is always looking for answers by “knowing”, this really gripped me too. Thank you for reminding me that relationship is always more important~ that it’s not my brain but my heart that should be most impacted by God’s Word.
Thank you. This is a good reminder for me to focus on relationships.