Knowledge + Practice = Faith

Philip Jacob Spener in his Pia Desideria laments the condition of the church and notes "the people must have impressed upon them and must accustom themselves to believing that it is by no means enough to have knowledge of the Christian faith, for Christianity consists rather of practice." (p. 95, emphasis his) He goes on to note especially the command to love one another found throughout Scripture.

While I am in no way willing to disagree with Spener here, I want to add one thing to what he has said--we must learn that knowledge is good, but knowledge without practice is dead. We must learn to do what we know. The act of "doing" requires action or movement on my part. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the very act of putting knowledge into practice is a kind of faith.

Faith in the Bible has the idea of faithfulness behind it. It is not mere consent or agreement, it is acting on something as though that idea or statement was truth itself. Abraham exhibited this when he responded to God by leaving his home and traveling to a new place simply at God's command. The blind man in John 9 exhibited this kind of faith when he went to the pool of Siloam and washed. Simply stated, faith in the Bible means acting on what you know is true.

Peter Lord once said--"We act on what we really believe, all the rest is just religious talk."

I think he is correct.

If I genuinely know that God wants me to do something, not doing it is both disobedience and a lack of faith/faithfulness on my part.

We must remember that our model here is Jesus.

How did he respond to God?

He was faithful in all things. Not once turning away from what was asked. His knowledge was followed by action that showed faith.

Read Hebrews 11.

Every single "hero" of the faith listed in that chapter DID something in response to the knowledge they attained. They acted in faith. They were faithful. Even when they did not actually see the promises realized, they continued to walk in faithfulness since they knew that God would not fail to perform what he promised (see Heb. 11:13-16).

We have the whole testimony of the word of God before us.

We live in an "information age."

We have knowledge beyond our parents and ancestors.

Yet we do so little with it.

We squander our opportunities, we act like what we "know" is not really true. We pretend to be men and women of wisdom, but we act like fools.

We have knowledge, but no faith. Sometimes we have a type of faith, but no action. We are the people to whom James says "Show me your faith without works, and I'll show you my faith by my works."

What do our actions reveal about our knowledge and our faith? By looking at our practice can others discern what we know and believe? If so, what message are we sending them?

God help us to be faithful people!

Thanks for reading!