Knowledge is Power?

I do have something a little deeper than a meditation on tea to offer you this fine afternoon! I have been thinking this afternoon about the power knowledge has. In a Psalms lecture this morning we were looking at number 82 which talks about being like God and so being called a 'god'. A god in Old Testament theology is someone who imitates God, is like them, lives an ethical life according to the laws of Yhwh. It's something that stems from Genesis when Adam and Eve eat of the tree of knowledge, they become like God, they not only know good and evil, they know everything there is for them to know. These thoughts then would seem to suggest that there is immense power attached to knowledge and greater repercussions as what you do with that knowledge can have disasterous or wonderful effects.

If you think about it, it is knowledge that opens up the opportunity to respond to God, you can't very well respond to something you're unaware of! It is the knowledge of the Father embodied and transmitted in the person of Christ that makes you understand the significance of what Jesus did, for your life and afterlife. There is much debate of course as to whether someone who does not know God can be held responsible for rejecting him like the person who knows God but does not follow him. When you receive knowledge of God through Jesus if you choose to follow him obviously there is the wonderful gift of eternal life, and we all know the opposite of this!

It amazes me though how knowledge in general is so sought after, Plato argued the best way to live your life is as a philosopher, seeking to understand every thing there is to understand. There are shows on te television that reward greatly for the amount of knowledge you have, wars have been won by deceiving the enemy. Everyone thirst for knowledge an understanding, if we look like we don't know something everyone else know in a a seminar or something we feel really emarrased! I'm constantly reminded by God that knowledge that comes from the world is not true knowledge, knowledge that comes from him is the stuff you need to base your life on, not what some stuffy old cantankerous philosopher thinks the way this world works.

Philosophy, the love of wisdom, is the study of what flawed, fallen humans have understood the world to be, you wouldn't actually get any closer to finding the truth going down the philosophy route after a century of studying it, there is not one philosophical argument that does not have criticisms and counter arguments! The Bible (Proverbs 1.6-8 fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, Romans 11.33 ect!)says that the knowledge of this world is deceptive, knowledge in the broad sense is power if it has the right source!