More Wise Words from Kent

There is nothing to fear in true knowledge. But when men parade their hypotheses and schemes as settled fact, particularly in the spiritual and religious realm, such knowledge is falsely named and must be shunned. This sort of knowledge which by its nature is the antithesis of revealed religious truth is the counter affirmation of the enemies of God to the genuine spiritual knowledge revealed by God’s Word. This falsely-named knowledge subjects God and His revelation to the mind of men (Homer Kent, The Pastoral Epistles, p. 203).

I always cringe (and some others things) when I see people arguing for Christianity without using the Bible. They will quote philosophers, authors, themselves, and the occasional blog post from somewhere. They mock (with clever and attractive mockery) those who differ from them.  They treat their pontifications as settled fact in the spiritual and religious realm. Yet they bother not to show where God said such a thing.

Of course it is hardly worse than those who argue for Christian while using the Bible with no apparent idea of what the Bible actually means by what it says. They seem to have no clue about what it actually means to a serious minded person living a fallen world. They think the call to be “all things to all people” did away with any sense of serious thinking about the intersection of the holy life and culture. They think dances and hot bands with bawdy speech and constant humor that lead to multiple services are a substitute for the kerygma and holy living.

The nonsense of both sides is intimidating to some, funny to others. The smart people don’t even read it.

We need not fear the religious and cultural pontifications of those who parade their hypotheses and schemes as settled fact. God revealed a religion to us. It is sufficient for these things. The simplicity of Christ is too simple for many. And the needle’s eye of philosophy and cultural creation is, for them, something to be threaded. But those driving the camel seem not to know that big objects don’t fit through little holes without serious damage to one or the other, or both.

I don’t know much (as you have figured out) but I hope I know enough to know when Christ is not the basis for religious sentiment of whatever type it might be.