The Spiritual Discipline of Not Knowing

Despite being a straight-A student in high school, I was unprepared for college-level Bible classes. Professors were using words I'd never heard in sermons or Sunday school; Midrash, Masoretic Text, LXX.  

These weren’t big classrooms I could disappear in.  

There may have been 20 of us.  

To make matters worse, some of my classmates were working on master's degrees. They might as well have been speaking a foreign language.

I invested in a theological studies dictionary, and the most popular study Bible at that time. 

The footnotes became my lifeline.

Whenever I encountered a difficult passage, my eyes immediately dropped to the bottom of the page. The notes helped me keep my head above water in class. They provided context, and insights that weren’t in the text. They kept me from embarrassing myself in front of everyone. 

What began as a survival strategy in college quietly became a lifelong habit. Years later, I realized something surprising.

In my insecurity, I started reading the footnotes first.  Decades later, I would discover that one of the most important lessons in Bible study is learning how to live with a question.

Some of my questions take hours.

Some take days.

Some take years.

Today, answers are easier to access than ever.

Study Bibles.

Commentaries.

Sermons.

Podcasts.

Google.

AI.

Within seconds, someone can tell us what a passage means.

And while these resources are tremendous gifts, they can unintentionally rob us of something important. 

The moment we realize we don’t understand something, our instinct is to get answers quickly.  Yet some of the deepest, most memorable learning happens while we are in that in-between stage.  Researchers call it an information gap.  In Bible study, I call it “The Rooting Space.”  It’s the sometimes uncomfortable place where we pray and wrestle with the text, read cross references, parallel passages and sometimes put our unanswered question on a mental bookshelf without having an answer.  

Usually my questions take hours or days. One sat on my mental shelf for 30 years.

That's one reason I've learned not to fear unanswered questions.

On the surface, it looks like nothing is happening, but below the surface, that seed of a question is forming little roots.  The time we’ve invested (planting seeds) in prayer, reading and studying scripture is used by God, and in His timing, understanding comes. And when it does, the roots have grown deep and the celebration of having the answer come from the Lord, locks in that learning in a way that a commentary could never do.   

I've forgotten a lot of what I learned from books and in classrooms. But the lessons the Holy Spirit has taught me remain vivid. I still get excited when I think about the things He taught me. 

God has clearly made a place for teachers.

I am grateful for professors, pastors, commentaries, study notes, and trusted resources.

The goal is not to avoid them.

The goal is to change the order.

Instead of:

Read → Consult Expert → Done

Try:

Pray → Read → Observe the text → Ask questions of the text → Wrestle → Wait → Then Consult

Give the Lord the first shot at your questions.

Give yourself time to be still, and notice what He may be showing you before you seek out a quick answer.

Start with a Bible that isn’t a study Bible. Remove the temptation of those footnotes.  

Read multiple translations 

Listen to a passage with an audio Bible

Use a concordance to review other passages that use the same key word(s). 

Look up the cross references and any parallel passages that relate to what you’re studying. 

Wait on the Lord.  It’s worth it. 

If you have a time constraint, then reach for resources that teachers have made for us.  I think you’ll be surprised at how much you learned up to this point. 

Pressed flowers are unique because they take time.

Tea becomes flavorful after it steeps.

Roots grow before leaves appear.

And understanding often develops before clarity arrives.

The next time you encounter a passage you don't understand, resist the urge to immediately look for an answer.

Pray into it. 

Spend more time with the text.

Live in the question a little longer. 

Waiting in the unknown gives the Holy Spirit time to teach you.

The space between questions and understanding can be where some of the deepest growth happens.