Challenging What We Know

We can “know” something to be true, and then find it is not true after all. I recall confidently assertive to a student that, of course, the name of the region Perea (to the east of the Dead Sea) appears in the Gospels. Despite what I knew to be true, it turns out I was wrong. With a bit of research I discovered that we get that name from other sources. I reported to the student my error.

Some people “knew” the earth was flat or that the sun revolves around the earth. It is very easy to assume something or to follow the received wisdom about the way things are, or about how something has always been done. Perhaps we accepted the word of authority figures—whether parents, teachers, politicians, or preachers—who told us the right way to think or to act. We did not question their word; we thought they were the experts. But then we run into something that calls that wisdom into question. We have to rethink things and investigate the issues thoroughly for ourselves. Ultimately, we may affirm, alter, or completely discard what we formerly accepted as true.

In his sermon [on the mount], Jesus challenges the way his Jewish disciples have been thinking about the kind of life that pleases God. They knew what the religious leaders were saying; but Jesus asserts that what they had heard was not true after all. As we listen in on his challenges, we may need to revise our own thinking about how well we are doing in our spiritual formation-being and doing the “righteousness” that allegiance to him requires. Grasping what he said to his followers, we can translate his principles into our own contexts and pursue this kind of life ourselves.