The Crisis of Knowing About God, Not Knowing Him as the Father.

Never before has so much information about God been so readily available. Millions of sermons, podcasts, books, and Bible studies are accessible with a few keystrokes, and Christians today possess more theological resources than any previous generation. Yet beneath this abundance lies a troubling reality: many believers know a great deal about God while knowing Him very little.

This is not merely a modern complaint dressed up in spiritual language. Scripture itself names this exact danger, long before podcasts or printed Bibles existed. Through the prophet Hosea, the Lord said, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6). Through Jeremiah, He said, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me" (Jeremiah 9:23–24).

Eternal life is not defined by possessing religious information but by entering into a living relationship with the God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. As Jesus Himself prayed, "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). The deepest crisis facing the Church in any generation, including our own, is not chiefly theological liberalism, moral decline, or secularism. It is the quieter and more subtle danger of replacing the knowledge of God with mere knowledge about God — of mistaking familiarity with the language of faith for communion with the Father Himself.

If that diagnosis is right, then the urgent question is not where to find more information about God. It is where God Himself may actually be found and known.

The Father Who Makes Himself Known

The God of the Bible is not a silent abstraction waiting to be discovered by human speculation, nor a distant Supreme Being who must be pieced together by reason. From the first pages of Scripture, He is the God who speaks, who calls Abraham by name, who meets Moses at the burning bush and declares, "I AM WHO I AM... I AM has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). When Moses later asked to see His glory, the LORD did not answer with a philosophical definition. He answered by proclaiming His own name and character: "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth" (Exodus 34:6). From the beginning, to know God has meant something more than acquiring facts. It has meant standing before a Person who chooses to be known.

Everything in the Old Testament — the covenant, the Law, the tabernacle, the prophets — was preparation for a fuller unveiling still to come. "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son... who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person" (Hebrews 1:1–3). What Moses glimpsed in a passing shadow of glory, the world now beholds "in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Son is "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15), and He Himself said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). The self-revelation of the Father in Christ is not one theme among many in Scripture — it is the theme toward which the whole of Scripture moves, and it is the answer to the crisis just named. The cure for knowing about God without knowing Him is not less information but a Person: the Father, made known in the Son, by the Spirit.

Information Is Not Communion

A person may know many facts about a historical figure without ever having met him. He may memorize dates, speeches, and accomplishments, and remain entirely unacquainted with the man himself. The same danger exists in the spiritual life.

A believer may understand the doctrines of the Trinity, salvation, grace, justification, sanctification, and the sacraments. He may quote Scripture accurately, defend orthodox theology, and teach others faithfully. These are genuine blessings — but they do not automatically produce a personal knowledge of God.

The Apostle Paul, despite his extraordinary learning, expressed the deepest longing of his life in four words: "That I may know Him" (Philippians 3:10). Paul already knew Christ as Savior, had seen Him on the Damascus road, and had received revelations few others were given. Yet he desired to know Him ever more deeply, "and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings" (Philippians 3:10). Genuine knowledge of God is never exhausted, because it is knowledge of the infinite One. Even the apostle who wrote so much of the New Testament could say, as if speaking for every believer, "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known" (1 Corinthians 13:12). Knowing God is a lifelong pilgrimage, not a subject to be mastered.

The Father Revealed in the Son

One reason many Christians struggle to know God personally is that they often think of God primarily as an abstract Supreme Being rather than as the Father whom Jesus came to reveal. The central mission of Christ was not merely to teach moral principles or establish a religion. He came to make the Father known.

John concludes the prologue of his Gospel with these remarkable words: "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:18). Jesus said plainly, "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him" (Matthew 11:27). Knowledge of the Father, in other words, is not something we work our way up to by reasoning about the divine nature. It is a gift the Son chooses to give.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus continually directed His disciples toward the Father. He taught them to pray, "Our Father in heaven..." He declared, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). He described His own relationship to His disciples in the same terms He used for His relationship to the Father: "I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father" (John 10:14–15). His miracles revealed the Father's compassion. His forgiveness revealed the Father's mercy. His Cross revealed the Father's love. His resurrection revealed the Father's victorious purpose. To know Jesus truly is to know the Father whom He perfectly reveals — and to reject the Son is, necessarily, to remain a stranger to the Father, however religious one may otherwise be: "You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also" (John 8:19).

The Danger of Religious Familiarity

One of the greatest spiritual dangers is becoming familiar with the language of faith while remaining distant from God Himself.

The Pharisees knew the Scriptures. They studied the Law. They defended orthodox beliefs and could out-argue nearly anyone on points of doctrine. Yet Jesus said to them, "You search the Scriptures... and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life" (John 5:39–40). Their knowledge produced confidence but not communion. They had memorized the Father's words without ever coming to know the Father's Son — and so, by their own account of Scripture's purpose, they had missed the very thing the Scriptures existed to give them.

Religious familiarity can become one of the greatest obstacles to genuine faith. We may assume that because we know biblical terminology, we know God. Yet Scripture consistently points beyond information to encounter, beyond the text to the Person the text reveals.

The Spirit Who Cries "Abba, Father"

Knowing the Father is not merely the result of intellectual effort. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, who takes what belongs to the Father and the Son and makes it real within us.

Paul writes: "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, 'Abba, Father!'" (Galatians 4:6). He explains, "You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Romans 8:15–16). The Spirit does not simply teach theological concepts. He brings believers into the very experience of divine sonship that the Son Himself enjoys.

Jesus told His disciples that the Spirit's work would be, in essence, to keep pointing back to Him and, through Him, to the Father: "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine" (John 16:14–15). This is why Paul can say that "the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God... that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (1 Corinthians 2:10, 12). The Spirit enables us to approach God with confidence. He assures us that we are loved. He transforms prayer from religious duty into filial communion. He forms the likeness of Christ within us. Without the Holy Spirit, theology becomes merely an academic exercise. With the Spirit, theology becomes worship.

Prayer: The School of Knowing God

The knowledge of God grows where prayer becomes communion rather than obligation.

Jesus frequently withdrew to pray — often before dawn, often alone (Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16) — not because He lacked knowledge of the Father, but because His earthly life continually expressed and deepened a perfect fellowship with Him. When He taught His disciples to pray, He did not begin with a request but with a relationship: "Our Father in heaven" (Matthew 6:9). Every time a believer prays those words, he is not merely using pious language; he is exercising the very adoption the Spirit has given him, entering, however falteringly, into the Son's own address to His Father.

Believers come to know the Father not merely by reading about Him but by speaking with Him, listening to His Word, and entrusting every aspect of life to His loving care. Prayer gradually transforms doctrine into experience. The God whom we study becomes the Father with whom we walk.

Obedience Deepens Knowledge

Scripture consistently links knowledge with obedience. Jesus said, "If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God" (John 7:17). The Apostle John is even more direct: "Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments" (1 John 2:3). And Jesus promised that obedience opens the door to an ever-deepening self-disclosure: "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him" (John 14:21).

Knowing God, then, is not simply a matter of intellectual discovery. It involves surrender. Every act of obedience opens the heart more fully to God's presence. Faith grows through trust. Love grows through fellowship. Knowledge grows through walking with Him. The Christian life is therefore not merely believing truths about God but living in communion with Him day by day.

The Church: A Family That Knows the Father

The Church exists not merely to preserve doctrine but to lead people into the life of God. "Through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father" (Ephesians 2:18), and it is to this same Father — the one "from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named" (Ephesians 3:14–15) — that every believer is joined.

Its preaching proclaims the Father through the Son. Its worship lifts hearts to the Father. Its prayers address the Father. Its sacraments communicate the grace of the Father through Christ by the Holy Spirit. The Church is a school of communion, where believers learn together what it means to live as children of God, not as solitary students of religious information but as members of one family gathered around one Father.

When this purpose is forgotten, the Church risks becoming merely an institution that distributes religious information rather than a family that shares the life of God.

When the Father Is Known, Everything Changes

Those who truly know the Father begin to see life differently.

Fear gives way to trust. Loneliness gives way to adoption — for "what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!" (1 John 3:1). Anxiety gives way to peace, because the same Spirit who cries "Abba, Father" within us bears witness that we belong to Him (Romans 8:15–16). Duty becomes delight. Prayer becomes conversation. Worship becomes thanksgiving.

Even suffering acquires new meaning, for the believer knows that the Father's wisdom governs every circumstance and that His love never fails. The knowledge of God is therefore not simply one doctrine among many. It is the foundation from which every other Christian doctrine receives its life.

Conclusion: The Father's House Is Open

The greatest invitation of the Gospel is not merely to accept certain truths but to know the living God. Jesus did not come to increase humanity's knowledge about God. He came to reconcile us to the Father, to reveal His heart, and to bring us into His family through the gift of the Holy Spirit. "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20).

Our generation possesses unprecedented access to biblical information. Yet information alone cannot satisfy the deepest longing of the human heart. The Church must therefore continually return to its central calling: leading men and women beyond religious knowledge into living communion with the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.

For eternal life is not measured by the number of sermons we have heard, books we have read, or doctrines we have mastered. It is measured by this one reality: "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3).

May every believer seek not merely to know more about God, but to know the Father through His Son, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. There, and there alone, the soul finds the life for which it was created.

Hegumen Abraam Sleman

frsleman@CopticChurch.net

frsleman.org

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