Amanda's Australian Story - The Most Dangerous Knowledge Is Half Knowledge

Oct. 1, 2007

The Most Dangerous Knowledge Is Half Knowledge

We have listened again recently, to Joshua Harris’ audio message, It’s All About Attitude. This is the message he gave at many homeschool conferences when he was only nineteen. That was a while ago. He now has a wife and children, and on the front cover of our tape pack, he still has hair. That too, has changed over the years (thirteen years to be exact). The most recent picture I saw of him, he had no hair at all. But, hey, it is Joshua Harris we are talking about here, who cares about his hair. He is great.

His message is funny, inspiring and educational. And one of the key things he wants to get across to homeschoolers and indeed, anyone who has grown up in the Church, is that we need to know WHY we believe what we believe.

He says: “So often we are satisfied with a rudimentary, surface understanding of our own faith, of the issues that surround us. It’s like we want to find out just enough to have some one liner we can throw out to sound knowledgeable, so that we can act smug. But, we are not willing to dig deeper than that.

Do you understand why you believe what it is you believe?”

To bring this point home to his audience, he tells a story that humorously illustrates this.

“It is a story of a country preacher. This country preacher is applying for this pastorate at this church. And he goes in there and the committee is interviewing this preacher, and they say:

‘Well, do you know the Bible?’

And he says, ‘Yep.’

And they say, ‘Okay, what’s your favourite book?’

And he says, ‘aah… Mark.’

And they say, ‘Well, what’s your favourite part?’

And he says, ‘The parables.’

And they said, ‘Well, what’s your favourite parable?’

And he said, ‘The story of the Good Samaritan.’

And they said, ‘Well, could you tell us this story?’

And he says, ‘Yep.’

So, he said, ‘One day a man was travelling from Jericho to Jerusalem. And he fell down, and the thorns grew up and choked him. And he got up, but he didn’t have any money, and he met the Queen of Sheba. And she gave him a thousand talents of gold and a thousand raiments of clothing. And he got in his chariot and he drove furiously. While he was driving under a Juniper tree, his hair got caught and he got hung up in that tree.

And he hung there for many days, but the ravens brought him bread to eat and water to drink. And he ate five thousand loaves and two fish.

But one night while he was hanging there, his wife Delilah, came and cut off his hair.

And he fell on stony ground, and he got up and he started to walk, and it began to rain. And it rained for forty days and forty nights. Finally it stopped.

He came to the city, and he looked up and saw that old Queen Jezebel sitting high in that castle window.

And he said, ‘Throw her down, up there.’

And they threw her down.

And he said, ‘Throw her down again.’

And they threw her down seventy times seven. And of the fragments that remained, they picked up twelve basketfuls, not including women and children.

And they said, ‘Blessed are the piece makers.’

Now, whose wife will she be on the judgment day?

“Many of us have grown up in the church. We know all of the stories. We know that stuff. But it is not enough to have snitches and snatches. We have to understand why this is the inspired Word of God. We have to understand why we believe what we believe. Someone once said, and it is so true, ‘The most dangerous knowledge is half knowledge.’”