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Articles
Knowledge without Understanding
In John 16:16, among His final words to His disciples before His death, Jesus said, “A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” The disciples had no problem simply knowing the words that He spoke. In fact, they could quote them word for word (:17). But when it came to understanding the meaning of those words, they had no idea. “We do not know (understand) what He is talking about” (:18). They suffered from what could be described as knowledge without understanding.
How often do we suffer from the same condition as the disciples? How often do we possibly know a passage in the Bible well enough to quote it forward and backward, yet we do not understand what it really means? If we have learned it, can we “rightly divid(e) the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15)? Being able to quote Scripture is a worthy goal, but what good does it do us if we cannot explain to someone what it means?
At times we experience the same problem in our singing. We sing some songs often enough to have them memorized. We know the words so well that we can sing them without thinking about them, and we do. If we were pressed to actually think about some of what we sing and explain the meaning of the words, we may be at a loss. As James wrote, “My brethren, these things ought not be so” (James 3:10b). Like Paul, we ought to “sing with the understanding” of what we are singing (1 Cor 14:15). How can we effectively “teach and admonish one another” if we do not understand what we are saying through our singing to one another (Col 3:16)?
So how do we develop the understanding we need? We can begin by examining the context and/or other related passages. Like the eunuch from Ethiopia, we may need to seek the help of others (Acts 8:30-31), whether through direct questions, the use of commentaries, or some other means (Always keep in mind that others can be wrong.). Sometimes we simply need to grab a dictionary and look up a word.
While we need to be full of knowledge, that knowledge needs to be accompanied by understanding. It is only when we have the proper understanding that we can make the proper application to our lives.
