Perhaps at the beginning of any theological study, there should be a course on knowing God.  What does it mean to “know” God?  Or what are the answers to the simple questions of, is God knowable, and if so, why should I worry about this knowledge?

Knowledge comes in many forms.  We can know about something’s existence, but is that adequate where God is concerned.  James Boice in his book The Foundations of Christian Faith describes another level of knowledge. He talks about the ability to know about a city…its streets, its neighborhoods, and its parks.  One could come to this knowledge by living there or by studying maps. This can be related to knowing God; we can know theology in many ways. It can be accomplished by knowing people who know God or by studying the intellectual concepts that the Bible entails. But is this truly knowing God?

In Romans 1, it says that God has made the knowledge of Himself plain to all and that man is without excuse.  So, where does that leave us because it is very obvious that much of mankind does not know God even though it ‘is plain to them’?

The “knowability” of God is something that is beyond the human intellect.  Knowing God involves ideas of faith and grace, ideas of a newness of life and being born again.  There is a knowledge that is not human by any means but is bestowed upon us by an out-pouring of the Holy Spirit that results in Him revealing Himself to us.

Knowing God is not like knowing an idea or philosophy and we should not expect it to be. Boice says that the knowledge of God is not so much that we search after him, because we won’t, but that He reveals Himself through Christ and the Scriptures; as well as through piety and worship.

There are many reasons to know God, our creator and the sustainer of life. But the greatest reason might simply be, what else is truly worth knowing?  Paul prayed that his loved ones would know God in a greater way, and encouraged them to grapple with the difficult concepts of our Savior. I would like to follow Paul’s example by encouraging us to drink deeply from scripture daily as well as from those like James Boice who have been enabled by the gift of a great mind and spiritual insight to stretch our thinking and expand our knowledge.