Forbidden knowledge

We think knowledge is neutral. Facts are facts, Jack, it's what you do with them that counts. But there is such a thing as forbidden knowledge.

Paul tells the Romans (16:19) "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." Elsewhere he tells us it's shameful even to think about what evil people do in secret.

That's a problem, because it's hard to avoid evil. Even network TV sometimes gets close to soft porn, and any depth of depravity is available on the Internet. Before you dismiss me as another Christian prude, let me say that in the right context I'm all for sex; it ranks right up there with bacon and ESPN as things I do not want to live without. But porn isn't about sex, it's about power and degrading people. It's Satan's gleeful perversion of what God gave as a beautiful gift; he dangles porn out there in an attempt to get us to trade down. Besides, great as it is, sex is not a spectator sport. Neither is death, or pain and suffering.

I'm not trying to define what forbidden knowledge is, but simply to offer enough examples to communicate the point: If we want to be obedient, there are some things we shouldn't know about. That means we have to make some deliberate decisions to pass things by, to look away, to opt out.

If we don't, we too soon get used to all the slick flesh and spraying gore and the dubious means that win us the seductive ends and then we, like the world, start to ask, "What's the big deal?" That's when we lose that precious thing that only closeness to God can give us, the ability to distinguish good from evil. We think as long as we don't act on what we know, we don't sin. Paul says with some things, just knowing is dangerous, even disobedient.

Paul warns earlier in Romans 16 that some people will tempt us by mixing a little forbidden knowledge in with their doctrine, to make religion more exciting. That's where cults come from, and it's why you can find a religion masquerading as Christianity that allows or even encourages almost any sin you want. Dabble in forbidden knowledge, and you will also lose your ability to know a crackpot religion when you see one.

There are some things you need to keep clean in order to have them work right: your furnace filter, the oil in your car, the dishes you eat off of, and your mind.