A Zeal According to Knowledge

Should we feel deeply or think carefully? Yes. It is an unfortunate reality in the church that we often create a false dichotomy between knowledge of the things about God and a zeal for him.

We tend to lean toward pursuing God intellectually or following him from the heart.

In reality, biblical Chrisitanity is a religion that feels very deeply but that also thinks and considers very carefully. Our hearts and emotions must be informed by knowledge and information. We must work and strive to avoid the error of Israel as Paul describes it in Romans 10:2, “they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”

We need a zeal for God that is driven by deep knowledge of God and His Word.

Recently, I heard Allistair Begg say in a podcast something along the lines that we must avoid the idea of a Christianity that is not incredibly emotional and filled with feeling, but we must also avoid a Christinity that is only emotion and devoid of biblical information. We need hearts that are filled to overflowing with emotion for Christ, but we also need to be sure that or hearts are informed by our heads.

A commitment to biblical information and theological information need not produce a cold intellectual Christianity. The more we know of God’s word the more we can know of God. The more we know of God, the greater our capacity to love and serve Him. We need a zeal for God, but one that is according to biblical knowledge.

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