Between knowing nothing and knowing a great deal there is something which is very dangerous. That is knowing a little. Knowing just enough to be dangerous.
In many instances, it isn't dangerous to be totally ignorant. If you don't know, and you know you don't know, you will go ahead and get help. I don't know about you, but I haven't attempted brain surgery in years. I know I don't know. It's not dangerous to be ignorant completely, because then you won't even touch it.
Nor is it dangerous to have a great deal of knowledge. If you are well-informed on some subject, either you know all you need to know, or you know how to find out the rest. They say that a major part of education is just teaching people how to learn. And so, I might not know the meaning of some word in the Hebrew Old Testament, but I do know how to find out. It isn't dangerous to have a good deal of knowledge, because that knowledge includes knowing how to find out.
But in between total ignorance and well-rounded knowledge, there is another place. And it is indeed a dangerous place. It is called, "knowing just enough to be dangerous." The woods are fu11 of such people.
The auto mechanic who knows how to get things torn apart, but who cannot get everything reassembled. Knows just enough to be dangerous.
The electrician who can hook it all up and make it glow, but who has unwittingly overloaded the system so that someday there will be a fire. Knows just enough to be dangerous.
The parent who has read a couple of government pamphlets on child-rearing and who just copies what her own mother did. Knows just enough to be dangerous.
Last week, I learned just enough to be dangerous. I learned WordPerfect. For those of you who are not yet ushered into the information age, WordPerfect is a computer word processing system. Ever since we got computers here at the church, every one of you who is computer literate has been screaming at me, "Why aren't we using WordPerfect?" And the answer was, "Because I don't know the system."
Well, now I know WordPerfect. As of last week, I learned WordPerfect.
And I can hear some of you snorting right now, "What do you mean, you KNOW WordPerfect? That would take you days and days, if not weeks, to learn. It's not something you pick up in one afternoon.
And you would be right, of course. You would be right on target. What I should be saying is that I know just enough WordPerfect to be dangerous.
For when our church secretary got into the material I had written for our Book of Reports and printed it out, she found all kinds of garbage. Margins changing in the middle of a paragraph; the size of the letters changing two or three times within a given word; bold print and underlining and assorted special effects showing up all over the place.
What had happened is that I had learned enough to be dangerous. I had learned a little about how to put all that stuff into my document, but had not taken the time to learn it in depth. And so my report was the most unbelievable assortment of weird computer commands you wi11 ever see. If it is at all readable in the book you will receive today, it is only because it was doctored by somebody who really knew what she was doing.
Sandwiched in between knowing nothing and knowing for sure is something else. Knowing just enough to be dangerous.
And the Christian who operates out of a folk theology, inherited from years of sitting through shouted sermons and singing silly songs; the believer who believes that the Bible is the word of God but who doesn't have the foggiest notion what it really contains; the church member whose spirituality is hazy and nothing more than a "feel-good" memory … we are in the same category. We know just enough to be dangerous.
The prophet Hosea reserved some of his most scathing language for those who failed at the point of knowledge. It was not that they had no knowledge; it was not that they were completely ignorant. It was that they knew just enough to be dangerous.
Listen: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
Let's think together for a few minutes about the destructive danger of too little knowledge.
I
First, I'd like you to see that when we arc in this twilight zone of knowing a little and yet not knowing very much, we are a danger to our selves. We are putting our own spiritual health in jeopardy.
Hosea speaks: "… with you is my contention, 0 priest. You shall stumble by day; the prophet also sha11 stumble with you by night."
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. You shall stumble by day and by night".
Our very lives depend on our being knowledgeable believers. Otherwise we will stumble. And stumbling is often fatal.
Many of us, you see, operate out of the notion that all you really need in order to be a good Christian is to attend worship, sing the songs, keep your nose clean, and pay your tithe. Many of us operate on the idea that being a Christian is a kind of suspended animation, in which it is no longer necessary to think. Many of us, when we come to church, expect to hang up our brains at the front door along with our hats and coats.
But I hear Hosea insisting that it's not that simple. The world you and I live in requires sophisticated Christians. The world and its challenges demand that we live with some degree of spiritual literacy. Or else we will stumble. We are not able to live successfully without knowledge.
For example, if we understood the Bible's teachings about sexuality, many of us would have avoided a great deal of heartache. But instead we got our knowledge of sex from the streets and from the movies, from the whispers and the rap-song rumors. And we stumbled. We know just enough to be dangerous to ourselves.
If we had understood the Scripture's concept of stewardship, we would have been able to live within our means, to have contentment and joy, even with limited resources. But instead we took our cues from slick ads, we have been seduced by TV images of prosperity, we have figured out how to get money but not how to keep it from getting us. We have learned how to mount up debt and live for the things that are here today and gone tomorrow. We have stumbled. We know just enough to be dangerous to ourselves.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” You shall stumble by day and by night." When we know just a little about the Christian faith, we know only enough to be dangerous. When we do not take the time to understand it in depth, we ourselves are the first victims of our lack of knowledge.
II
But it goes deeper. It goes beyond being dangerous to ourselves. When we know only a little about spiritual reality, we are not only a danger to ourselves. We are also a danger to others. We are in danger of harming not only our own lives; if we have only a smattering of spiritual knowledge, we arc also a menace to society.
Hosea cries out to the priests, who carry the responsibility for teaching others, "Hy people are destroyed for lack of knowledge … because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. [As for my people], the more they increased, the more they sinned against me ... they shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply".
Hosea is warning us that we'd better know what we're about if we arc going to be Christians at work in the world. We'd better have some skills and some real depth knowledge, or else we will be guilty of causing others to be destroyed. We will be a danger to others.
"My people arc destroyed for lack of knowledge … the more they increased, the more they sinned against me. They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply."
In other words, if we do not know how to interpret God's will to the world, the world will think it's doing just fine, only to discover that it is in misery. If we do not know the faith and, more than that, do not know how to share the faith, we are putting our world in danger.
It's easy to blame society for its own problems. That seems only common sense. But may I suggest this morning that we as God's people have been given the responsibility of making a difference in this world. So if we do not know how to do that and do it we 11, God's judgment comes down on us just as much as it comes down on the world.
You can blame whomever you want for the continuing violence that destroys the quality of 1ife in Washington. But several years ago one of my friends had the audacity to suggest that if the churches were doing their jobs, this bloodthirsty mood would not exist. I got angry at that statement. I was offended at it. I thought we were doing our job. After all, weren't we preaching and praying and singing up a storm every Sunday?
But he was right, you know. We in the church know only a little about being church. Just enough to be dangerous. We know how to run our mouths behind closed doors and stained glass windows. But there is so much we have not learned. We have not learned how to speak to young people; we know very little about hearing the cries of children. We miss out on understanding the heartaches of single parents. We have not taken the time to learn the social sources of crime. We don't think it's spiritual to look at the economics of violent behavior. And we most certainly do not want to hear anything about the corrosive power of racism. We're too busy being spiritual!
No, God's people are destroyed because the church of Jesus Christ is ignorant but thinks it knows! The church of Jesus Christ knows only a little. Just enough to be dangerous to the world.
They tell me that when the Russian revolution was being fought in the streets of Moscow in 1917, the synod of the Russian Orthodox church was engaged in a bitter debate about correct robes and vestments for their priests. That church knew a little about being religious, just enough to be dangerous and irrelevant to the world.
They tell me that when lunch counter segregation was being challenged in the Greensboro Woolworth's, a major Christian denomination was meeting in the same city, fighting over which hymnal to sing from. Those Christians knew a little about being holy; just enough to be dangerous and beside the point.
My greatest nightmare is that someday my Lord will tell me that when men and women were destroying themselves, the church of which I was pastor decided to hunker down and plead ignorance, or worse, plead that it knew enough. It knew just enough to be dangerous.
I have a vision of our church serving as a very university of 1ife. My hope and dream wou1d be that here we would offer quality education, quality exposure to God's truth. This ought to be the place where not only could we learn about the Bible, but we could also learn about everything which concerns God.
This ought to be the place where not only might we learn about worship, but we could also learn about self-worth. Not only where we learn to sing praises, but also where we learn to think critically. Not only where we learn to pray, but also where we learn to use our political muscle. The church of Jesus Christ ought to be a very university of life. I hope we'll catch that vision in the years to come.
God says, "Because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me." We are not indispensable to the Kingdom. Our tiny scraps of knowledge are more dangerous to the world than if we knew nothing at all. God's call is to know thoroughly. God's call is to know the Scriptures, to train ourselves for effective witness. Gods call is to know our society, to understand our world, to get acquainted with our culture.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge and because you have rejected knowledge, I have rejected you from being a priest to me." We know just enough to be dangerous to the world.
III
But let me conclude with one more thought about this theme of knowledge, one more thing about knowing just enough to be dangerous.
It is true that when we know just a little about our faith, but do not get into it thoroughly, we are a danger to ourselves. It is true that we will stumble.
And it is true that when we know just a smidgin about the power of our faith, but keep it confined and do not use it to confront the world … it is true that we arc a danger to others and are in danger of being rejected by our God.
But it is also true that the kind of knowledge that Hosea speaks of is much more than factual knowledge. It is much more than information. The kind of knowledge Hosea speaks of is personal knowledge, intimate knowledge. It is the kind of loving knowledge that one person has for another ... not facts and figures, not information and issues, but intimacy.
And so in a wonderful climactic phrase, Hosea's God reaches out to us and pleads, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."
Once more our God says to us, in words that strike straight to the heart, that it is not enough to be religious. It is not enough just to maintain the trappings of church. It is not sufficient just to talk the talk. At some point we also have to walk the walk. At some point we have to arrive at a knowledge of God, a personal, intimate, heartfelt, continuing friendship with the living Lord. Otherwise, however much you may know, it's all just facts and figures, it's all just cold abstractions. The final issue is, "Do you know the Lord?" "Do you know the Lord?" Or do you just know enough to be dangerous?
It is not only whether you know the Scriptures. In addition to that you must know their author.
It is not only whether you understand the church. You must also understand the church's founder.
It is not only whether you have thought through the world's issues. After that you must discern the heart of the world's redeemer.
Do you know the Lord? Not mere about the Lord, not simply about the mind of Christ. But do you know the Lord Himself? Is He your friend and are you His? Do you perceive Him in your daily walk, do you hear Him in the depths of your heart, can you trace out the desires of His will? Do you know the Lord?
"I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."
It was the apostle Paul who said it best, "For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we wi11 see face to face. Now I know only in part … just enough to be dangerous. Then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. "
Fully known. And no longer dangerous.
