Knowledge and Relationship

It's bound to be an interesting discussion. Get a group of Protestants around a table and ask them, "Are Catholics saved?"

My opinion is, "Some of them."

Less than Protestants, but then, not all Protestants are saved. After all, Jesus said that there would be many who would call Him Lord, but would not know Him.

So why are some Catholics saved?

The thing is, we are justified by faith in Christ, and the assurance of that is a growing relationship with God through Christ.

And relationships thrive on accurate knowledge.

Now, no human knows everything about any other human. And there are degrees of knowledge. Take me and my friend Kallie. We are good friends, and I know a lot about her. But there are somethings I don't know about her, and undobtedly some things I "know" about her that are just plain wrong. But most of these things are things that don't effect our relationship, like the name of her primary school, etc.

Our relationship would, however, be effected if I didn't know her name, or if I consistently got her name wrong.

Catholics are like that. They have a lot of wrong kowledge - less so than in the past, for the Catholic position is not what it once was. And this can really hinder them from building a relationship with God. For the classic example, Catholics have an emphasis on works that is not in the Protestant theology. They believe, to varying degrees, that you can "earn" a little tiny bit of salvation for yourself. Not all of it. But a little, tiny bit. And that wrong theology keeps them from as effectively relating to God as a loving Father who wants to give them all things. It's quite important knowledge, especially when you're getting it wrong, but it is possible to build a relationship with that wrong attitude.

But what about other "groups". Take the Jehovah's Witnesses. They don't believe in the deity of Christ. And that is pretty hard to get past. It's like they consistently and insist on getting their friend's name wrong, and not only wrong, but giving them an insulting name into the bargin. It's pretty darn near impossible to build a relationship like that.

Knowledge about God is sometimes denigrated in Protestant Christian circles, especially those that are not "Reformed". I've been told that I have "too much head knowledge." That's silly. You can never have too much head knowledge about God. You can however, fail to translate that head knowledge into heart knowlede. But it isn't the head knowledge that is the problem. Indeed, it's hard to have any knid of heart knowledge without true and accurate head knowledge.

So let's build up our knowledge of Christ, of His Word and His love for us. Let's search the Scriptures for His voice, that we may love Him more each day.