MANY YEARS AGO, I conducted a phone interview with a renowned psychologist who had applied for an open teaching post in our school. I had read some of his work and respected it. But I was surprised when we received his application. I didn’t know that the man was a Christian…or was he? When I studied his vita, I found nothing suggesting that he was, in fact, a believer. Did he not understand what it meant to teach in a Christian institution like ours?

In our phone conversation, therefore, I asked if he had read our Statement of Faith, and whether he’d be able to sign it as all faculty members are required to do. His response was enthusiastic but evasive; he told me how much he respected our Statement. So I pushed harder: would he actually consider himself to be a Christian, and if so, what did that mean to him? His response: “You know, some of my best friends are pastors.”

We didn’t hire him.

What we know or understand about God, or Jesus, or the Bible, is important to who we are as Christians, as “believers.” Saying that we “believe in Jesus,” for example, has to be different than what it would mean to say that we believe in unicorns. Biblically speaking, to believe is to have faith, and faith is more than just head knowledge, more than just agreeing that certain statements are true. It’s living in accordance with that truth, even to the point of entrusting our lives to it.

Knowledge is important. But it can be pursued for the wrong reasons. We can fill our heads with knowledge because we want other people to see us as knowledgeable. We can take pride in the fact that we know things that others don’t. We can be the people at a party who, in the midst of some friendly back-and-forth banter, are too eager to squeeze in some impressively obscure factoid that brings the conversation to a screeching halt.

As we’ve seen, the people of the young church in Colossae may have been tempted by heretical but impressive sounding ideas. Paul tries to convince them that the knowledge available to them in and through the gospel should be treasure enough. Here are his words again:

I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Col 2:1-3, NIV)

Though they’ve never met personally, Paul wants them to know how much he struggles as an apostle on behalf of the churches in Colossae and nearby Laodicea. Again, the word translated as “contending” here evokes the image of an athletic competition. He says this to encourage their hearts, to prompt them to cultivate the love that “unites” them. Paul will use that verb again in verse 19 to describe the way the ligaments and tendons hold a body together — and similarly, here in verse 2, it’s love that holds the body of Christ together.

This is the context in which Paul mentions the “riches of understanding” and the “treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” This isn’t knowledge for its own sake, nor knowledge for the sake of stoking one’s pride. I think here of what Paul told the Corinthians, apparently in response to a question about whether it was permissible to eat meat that had previously been sacrificed to a pagan idol. Steak at a discount? Why not?

Some said it was perfectly fine to buy and eat such meat, because idols don’t really exist anyway. But others who had a more sensitive conscience still recoiled at the idea. Even if they intellectually understood the reasons for believing it was permissible, they couldn’t actually do it without feeling a sense of doubt and a pang of guilt.

Paul’s response? “Knowledge puffs up,” he wrote, “while love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). Knowledge can be used selfishly in the service of one’s own ego and desires instead of in the loving service of others. Never mind that those who believed it was okay to eat the meat could be said to be theologically correct; by causing those with less sophisticated beliefs and a weaker conscience to stumble, they were sinning against Christ (vss. 9-12).

Thus, Paul isn’t handing the Colossians a list of little-known Bible facts to wow their friends at a church social. True, they have all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge they could ever want in the gospel as already revealed; they don’t have to go looking elsewhere for wisdom, no matter how attractively it’s packaged. And they will gain even more knowledge as they mature in the faith.

But their knowledge can’t be separated from love. They’re not meant to do any of this alone; they’re meant to grow together, in unity and mutual encouragement. Reaching what Paul calls the “full riches of complete understanding” means growing in conviction and assurance, being more firmly settled in what they believe. And that conviction is strengthened in community.

. . .

I’VE SPENT NEARLY my entire adult life with one foot in academia and the other in the church. I stuff my students’ heads with knowledge, to the point where some begin to feel overwhelmed. And I believe in the value of book-learning. But it’s never knowledge for its own sake; it’s knowledge I think they’ll need in order to pursue the vocation to which they believe God has called them. It’s knowledge in the service of practical wisdom, knowledge in the service of others.

And that’s how it should be in the body of Christ. May we always use what we know to lovingly build each other up in faith and conviction.