We've all heard that "head knowledge" of the gospel of Jesus Christ is not sufficient for genuine salvation. There must also be "heart knowledge," meaning that we have to know it in our heart, our bones, our inward parts. While I do affirm that mere intellectual ascent is insufficient by itself (although necessary!), I'm not ready to say that feeling it or knowing it deeply (although necessary!) is enough either.
When I was in the optical business, I attended a week of meetings hosted by a major contact lens manufacturer. During the meetings, which took place in the early 90s, an expert in the area of managed health care and third-party payer systems talked for about half of one day. In his presentation he made the startling claim that the average discount for optical services over the course of the next couple of years was going to be 60%!
That number was shocking to me, the only retailer in the room, because we were already heavily discounting as a part of our marketing strategy. In addition to giving hefty discounts, we were paying significant fees for franchise rights, royalties and advertising...not to mention the cost for payroll, space, materials and insurance. Doing just a little cursory math told me that we would be bankrupt in about a week if what this man was saying was true. The implications were staggering.
I began researching the issue and, the more I dug, the worse things appeared. It was inescapable that third-party plans were going to be a fact of life. Head knowledge. It also was inescapable that we were going to experience negative financial changes as these changes escalated. We felt it in our bones. Heart knowledge.
It was also clear that something had to change if there was any chance for this company to survive. We had to do something. We had to do the work of living into the changing reality of the world we were living in. The circumstances demanded that we work as a natural response to what we now knew and believed. To not would have been to commit professional and financial suicide.
And now back to the gospel of Jesus. If we know the facts of Jesus and agree with their truthfulness, and believe in our hearts that Jesus truly is the Son of God and did what He said He was going to do, doesn't that demand that we do something? How can it not?
I think this is a natural part of our experience as Christians. We so desperately want to do something, don't we? I can't tell you how many times I've heard people sincerely ask, "So what do I do now?" Tragically, we often think that the "do" is law-keeping, keeping our noses clean, obeying the rules so that God will think we're good boys and girls.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus seems to give us a different picture of what the implications of being His follower are. It seems that the knowledge passes from head to heart to hands. See also Matthew 25.
I'm not advocating a works righteousness, but it is undeniable that we are created for good works. Serving, giving, loving, sacrificing, self-denying, truth-telling. These are what Jesus said we should be doing. Can we truly call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ if we are not doing these things?
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1 comment:
Head...heart...hands...pretty catchy. Calvin agreed with you:
"Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue, but of the life; is not apprehended by the intellect and memory merely, like other branches of learning; but is received only when it possesses the whole soul, and finds its seat and habitation in the inmost recesses of the heart . . . but it must be transfused into the breast, and pass into the conduct, and so transform us into itself, as not to prove unfruitful."
~John Calvin~ Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3 Chapter 6, Section 4, The Life of a Christian Man
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