Devotional 3 of 7

Evaluation of this devotional is graded on a participation only basis. To receive points for the unit devotional, you must write one original post in response to your instructor’s prompt. Content of the posting is not graded.

After reading this week’s devotional, post your personal thoughts on what the Devotional means to you and how you find it applicable in your study right now.There was a researcher, for instance, who studied a group of people and she wrote the following report: impostors, unknown, dying, beaten, sorrowful, poor, and having nothing. Yet, in the power of God, the people were actually genuine and known; living on; not killed; always rejoicing; making many rich; and possessing everything. (2 Corinthians 6:8-10)

Beyond what is seen and understood, therefore, Christians should pay attention to how God sees and what God means. This is the reason we, as Christian researchers, need to ask Holy Spirit to help us discern what is true and good.

“For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:11-14)

The following excerpts (Harris, 2004) also help us expand our understanding of the limitations of human knowledge.

• Because we are fallible as discoverers and interpreters, sometimes what we thought was knowledge turns out to have been wrong. We thought we knew something, but now we know better. What we thought was knowledge was really only a wrong belief. (p. 4)
• Do not assume that what you read in a textbook or hear in a lecture consists of a series of unimpeachable facts or unarguable conclusions. Learn how to think. Examine and test the information you consume. As Paul says, “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Test the source of the information. Remember that there are other reasons for making knowledge claim than the desire to share pure truth with the world. (p. 13)
• Scholars and scientists are human beings, and as such they have personal beliefs and values that sometimes influence their scholarly work. The search for knowledge, while theoretically an unfettered journey down the path of truth, wherever it leads, is in practice often powerfully shaped by social and cultural considerations. (p. 60)

Harris, R. A. (2004). The integration of faith and learning: A worldview approach. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books.