{"id":669,"date":"2008-06-10T17:50:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T17:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/graceworksimport.wordpress.com\/2008\/06\/10\/living-on-a-need-to-know-basis"},"modified":"2008-06-10T17:50:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-10T17:50:00","slug":"living-on-a-need-to-know-basis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/?p=669","title":{"rendered":">Living on a Need to Know basis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&gt;submitted by Robin  Schmidt<\/p>\n<div class=\"Section1\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family:Comic Sans MS;font-size:85%;\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;font-family:'Comic Sans MS';\"><br \/>It is the information age. We can find out pretty much anything  through books, television, or the world wide web.<\/p>\n<p>We value knowledge and  pursue it. We have game shows where people compete to see who possesses greater  knowledge. Remember Ken from Jeopardy? He seemed to know EVERYTHING. We believe  knowledge is power. If we know then we are in  control.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family:Comic Sans MS;font-size:85%;\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;font-family:'Comic Sans MS';\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family:Comic Sans MS;font-size:85%;\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;font-family:'Comic Sans MS';\">My father-in-law is not a  doctor, but he plays one on the internet. With a small amount of research he can  diagnose symptoms, attempt to manage treatment and presume to advise doctors.  Sometimes a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, I have  been reflecting on the connection between knowledge and fear.<\/p>\n<p>In the  beginning there was a tree and it was called the tree of the knowledge of good  and evil.  Of all that God created this was the one tree whose fruit man and  woman could not eat.<\/p>\n<p>Then came the lie. You will not die if you eat this  fruit, said the serpent, eat it and your eyes will be opened and you will be  like God, knowing good and evil.<\/p>\n<p>You will be like God.  What did the  woman think that meant?  Exactly like God?  Equal to God?  Did she get that it  was just like God in <b><i><span style=\"font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;\">knowing<\/span><\/i><\/b>?<\/p>\n<p>Fast  forward a few hundred\/thousand years and consider some shepherds outside of  Bethlehem.  An  angel appeared to them, and his first words were: Fear not.  Why? Because an  angel appeared to the shepherds and suddenly they <b><i><span style=\"font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;\">knew<\/span><\/i><\/b>. They knew  that angels existed. They knew they were not alone. They knew what an angel  sounded like, looked like, and they were afraid, sore afraid.<\/p>\n<p>Faced with  the <b><i><span style=\"font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;\">knowledge<\/span><\/i><\/b> of an  angel, we know we are not the biggest thing going. We are NOT God, we are little  and powerless and vulnerable and we become afraid.  Very afraid.  Sore  afraid.<\/p>\n<p>We are made in God&#8217;s image but we don&#8217;t have his perspective, his  power, you name it we ain&#8217;t got it.  So, here we are, NOT a lot like God, only  now we <b><i><span style=\"font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;\">know.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p>The  woman saw that the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eye and it  was desirable for gaining knowledge. She desired knowledge so she took it and  ate and gave it to the man.<\/p>\n<p>You might say she had a hunger for knowledge.   So do we.<\/p>\n<p>They ate the fruit and they recognized their nakedness and  attempted to hide it and then hid themselves from God because they were  afraid.<\/p>\n<p>Afraid of what?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m thinking they were afraid of what they  knew.<\/p>\n<p>God told them not to eat from that tree, presumably because they  didn&#8217;t need to know good and evil.  God walked with them in the garden and was  asking them to live on a need to know basis.  But knowledge is power and we want  to <b><i><span style=\"font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;\">know<\/span><\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>The  thing is, they already knew all they needed to know.  They knew  God.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family:Comic Sans MS;font-size:85%;\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;font-family:'Comic Sans MS';\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&gt;submitted by Robin Schmidt It is the information age. We can find out pretty much anything through books, television, or the world wide web. We value knowledge and pursue it. We have game shows where people compete to see who possesses greater knowledge. Remember Ken from Jeopardy? He seemed to know EVERYTHING. We believe knowledge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0qX-aN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}