The Knowing Loop

For many "know" is purely academic. For others it is "intimacy." One emphasizes the accumulation of information that leads to understanding. The other emphasizes relationship. Too often we are made to feel we have to choose one over the other. Many struggle with not having enough of one or the other. Jesus teaches us that there is a progression that I believe is not a straight line, but a loop. We have to enter the loop somewhere. Curiosity might be the entrance. Pain might be the entrance. Denial and the attempt to prove something false might be the entrance. Awe might be the entrance. But, something has to catch our attention to get us in the loop. Sometimes once a person is in the loop, they get stuck in one part of the loop like a scratched CD that plays the same line over and over. Jesus came to clean our CD, remove the scratches, and allow us to loop through the process of knowing so that we can experience all of what that means. In our text, John 7:28-29, Jesus lays out the loop.

Jesus is speaking to people who could be and should be in the loop by this time. They have been given access to the loop, but they are acting as if they do not even know there is one. This is frustrating to Jesus who knows the gate to the loop is near each one of them, and that the admission is free. It is like the "pool" metaphor I often use in teaching others. We might read a Scripture, and then I will ask the person to jump in somewhere, shallow or deep, but get in somewhere. It seems many walk around and around the pool and act as if there is no pool. They sweat and get hotter and hotter, when a cool dip awaits them. Look at this text. Let's jump in.  The word Jesus uses for "know" here is Eido. In Gal.4:8 Paul says there was a time when the Gentiles did not know God and were slaves to things that were really no gods at all. 1 Thess.4:5, describes those who are now Christians but sometime act like those who do not know God. 2 Thess.1:8 talks of those who will suffer at Jesus' coming, i.e. those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel. Paul tells us in Titus 1:16 that some profess knowledge of God but deny Him by their deeds. Heb.8:11 makes clear that all who are genuinely in the new covenant will know God and be taught by Him. These are all instructive to help us understand the loop as Jesus lays it out in John 7.

If we begin top down and then bring our progression into a circle this is what we will see:
***Jesus is from God. Jesus as a Son (yet divine) proceeds from (originates) the Father.
***Jesus knows the Father. He is the only one who has seen Him, knows Him, and reveals Him.
***Jesus is sent to earth by the Father.
***The crowds have access to the knowledge of Jesus (and through Him the knowledge of God) but they did not acquire it (didn't do their research).
***They were missing the opportunity to enter the loop so that they could know the one who is True (authentic).
Had they done so the loop would have been completed and looked like this:
***The crowds would have believed in Jesus, listened to Him, and been introduced to the True God.
***As they got to know this True God, He would have given new birth to them, and they too would have proceeded from the Father, and been sent into the world as those who now know the Father, being taught by Him, and showing, as Jesus did, others who the Father is so that they could have relationship with Him, which would in turn increase our knowledge of God, our intimacy with God, and our productive work for God on the earth. The loop is meant to loop again and again till He comes again, and wraps everything up.