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A Brief Case For Head Knowledge.


Head knowledge of Christ is as important as heart knowledge, just as your left leg is as important as your right leg, when running a race.

 In encouraging people to cultivate deeper relationship with Christ, we often tend to distinguish between knowing Christ in the head and knowing Him in the heart. By doing so, we suggest that people can only either know Christ in the head (as in, intellectually) or in the heart.

The truth: we can - and should - do both.

In fact, it's even more important to have a sound intellectual knowledge of Christ - considering that we have chosen to love and serve Him who the world hates. When you love someone generally loved by the world, you have less reason to explain your affiliation. When you love someone people generally hate, you are going to be frequently challenged to defend your affiliation - unless you choose to hide your love and affiliation. (Just ask Trump supporters).

We Christians love to talk about our salvation and the consequent realities in Christ. It's a lovely topic and we can spend years on that. But it's of limited use in our war with the world. Unless we create and live in a bubble insulated from the fiery darts of the world, we can't afford to not be intellectually armed to contend for and defend our faith in Christ Jesus.

Jude understood this, so he wrote to us: "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to CONTEND FOR the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people." (Jude 1:3)

Peter understood this, so he wrote to us: "Always be prepared to ARTICULATE A DEFENSE to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But respond with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who slander you will be put to shame by your good behavior in Christ." (1 Peter 3:15-16)

Paul understood this, so he wrote to us, "A servant of the Lord must ...be... ABLE TO TEACH, and forbearing. He must gently REPROVE those who oppose him, in the hope that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 2: 24-25). Elsewhere, in Colossians 4:6, he wrote, "Be pleasant and hold their interest when you speak the message. Choose your words carefully and BE READY TO GIVE ANSWERS to anyone who asks questions."

Jesus also understood the importance of intellectually engaging non-believers. Even as a little boy, all who heard Him were amazed at His UNDERSTANDING and His ANSWERS (Luke 2:47). In fact, John used three whole chapters (ch. 8-10) to write about Jesus' intellectual engagements (aka arguments) with the Pharisees.

When we refuse to engage intellectually, we do the the Lord's work a disservice. When we teach people not to argue when they go preaching, we do the work a disservice. When we don't teach parishioners sufficient apologetics to respond to the world when they leave their Christian bubble, we do the work of God a disservice.

When we make our young people believe they need no other argument and no other plea, that it is enough that Jesus died for them (words of a beautiful hymn, taken out of context), we set them up for failure in the race. There's a reason we have, according to a study, about 70% of Christian teenagers walking away from their faith as they transition into higher institutions.

For as long as we're in the world, our commission remains to go into the world and TEACH all nations (Matthew 28:19). Engaging intellectually is not optional. We must know the Lord, both in the head and in the heart.
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