Confessions of an Ignoramus

Deuteronomy 29:29

Three words have brought liberty to my life.  Take a guess.  No, not “I love you.”  The proper use of the three words I’m thinking of brings great freedom.  Ready?  Here they are: I don’t know. 

I’m not saying I don’t know what the three words are.  I’m saying the three words are: I don’t know.  The appropriate use of these three words frees us from shackles we were never meant to wear.

We demand to know every angle of a matter, every possibility, every eventuality.  We must know who, what, where, why, when and how.  Knowledge is power!  Knowledge is liberty! 

Sometimes that’s true, but other times the opposite is true. Yet that doesn’t set well with us. Without the answers we feel vulnerable. Only knowledge quells our worries.

It’s amazing how many people expect me to provide the knowledge to solve their problems.  “Why did God allow my baby brother to die?”  “What does God want me to do with my life?”  “Is this person God’s choice for my life-partner?”  Pastors must be not only theological geniuses, but also legal experts, financial wizards, and medical specialists.  Trouble is, some of us think we are! Yet I’ve discovered there are times that the sanest thing I can say is: I don’t know.

“What are you,” you ask, “some kind of ignoramus?”  Well, yes!  That about sums it up.  And here is the good news: So are you! 

Now, before you use another name for me, understand what “ignoramus” means.  It’s from a Latin word meaning “we do not know.”  It was a legal term to describe the verdict when the prosecution’s evidence was insufficient.

We’re all ignoramuses!  We don’t know everything, and we need to realize it.  In ourselves we do not possess and are incapable of discovering the knowledge to prosecute God for the things we don’t like about how He is running the universe.

How does that bring peace?  Frankly, in an atheistic worldview it brings terror.  In such a worldview, if I don’t know and can’t know, then I am a pawn in a world out of control.  In such a world “knowledge” becomes god.  You’d sell everything to obtain it.  But in a worldview that includes God this admission brings incredible peace. 

Among Moses’ final words, were these gems: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).  Immediately several questions confront us.