I was reflecting recently on myself and on people in general and why it is that we don’t learn more than we know. I was astonished to find that what keeps me from learning is often the things I have already learned. What I have come to know gives me some sense of assurance and status and a sense of pride. I like that. But having this keeps me from wanting to learn more.
In Matthew 13:10-17, Jesus explains to His disciples why some people do not learn by explaining to them why He taught everyone in parables. The scripture says this in Matthew 13:10-11. “And the disciples came and said to Him, ‘Why do You speak to them in parables?’ He answered and said to them, ‘Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.’”
The “them” He is talking about was the Jewish leaders. The disciples understood that the leaders did not understand what Jesus was saying because what they knew is what gave them power and authority. They could not learn more because they thought they had learned all they needed. We cannot understand more when we are unwilling to learn more.
Jesus’ response to them is even difficult to understand. By telling the disciples it was given to them to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven He was saying this to them: Because you have hearts to want to know and to learn, your hearts desire has been given to you, even to understanding the deep things of God and of heaven.
But the Jewish leaders did not have hearts to want to learn. What they knew made them more than the people who lived at that time. Their hearts were hardened by the very things they had learned. They could not understand what Jesus was saying because they spent all their time trying to get Him to understand what they knew. They were not willing to allow what they knew to be challenged by what they did not know.
I’m ashamed to say I have found some of the Jewish leader’s heart in me sometimes. In times past, I could get so fixed on the one thing I knew that it would keep my heart shut from learning more and better things. I had to learn to overcome this attitude and nature.
I know now that we should all feel blessed by the things God reveals to us in His Word. But we should also feel fearful in some ways because there is more to know and to learn that we do not know. I was brought to a good place of fear because I understood I knew a little but there was much more to know.
Proverbs 1:5 came to life in me, and it should live big in you. It says, “A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wish counsel.” A wise person is simply someone who has the sense to pay attention to what is happening around them, to learn from things and to keep learning of the things that could be.
Being wise doesn’t mean we are smarter than anyone else. It simply means we are prudent about what we know, and we seek to know what is not known or is what is hard to know. Being wise means we learn as much from what has yet to happen as we do from what happened yesterday.
We cannot know the Lord the way we should if by what we know we limit ourselves to the legality of it all. If what you know is of any real value, then the wise will never harden their hearts to stop learning and knowing. The wise and prudent will allow what they know to be challenged because they fear missing out on something they could know but miss.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction. People with hardened hearts despise learning more and they reject more instruction. Let’s pray that this is not who we are. Let’s learn to use what keeps us from learning as a way to help us grow in what we know and in how we learn.
If we stop learning and understanding more of what we do not know, we will miss the Lord when He visits us in ways we have not learned before.
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