Not What You Know — Henry Williams

I'm really not against learning. I'm very much for it (and I'm doing it all the time). If it sounds like I'm not for it, it's because I'm concerned that our tradition has lost balance. We've traded doing the ministry of Jesus in every arena of life for gaining more and more information. Too often we measure spirituality by knowledge rather than love in action. It's both/and, of course. But you can't do both/and when life is out of balance.

So it's in that spirit that I include this other idea from Erwin McManus as summarized by Mark Batterson. It reminds me of something I've said many times: "We're not trying to turn people into biblical scholars. Biblical scholars are that great at living the Christian life. We want to equip people to bring Christ into everyday life."

"Studying the Bible doesn't change people. Just look at seminaries." ...The true measure of spiritual maturity is not how much we know but how much we obey. And the truth is--all of us are educated way beyond our level of obedience! We certainly need to keep learning. But our primary problem isn't a lack of knowledge. Our primary problem is that we aren't obeying what we know!