Today, I want to talk about faith, joy, and knowledge, and I want to put them together

if possible.

So, Pastor John, as I'm sure you've heard, Augustine, of course, famously said, faith seeks

understanding.

And 700 years later, Anselm said, I believe in order that I might understand, that's

profound.

And since faith is the doorway into more knowing, and then 800 years later, after that, Karl

Bart came along and seems to push this one step further, essentially saying, I believe

in order to understand, and I seek to understand in order to rejoice.

So, for him, there's a progression and joy is the possession of those with a knowledgeable

substance to their faith.

But I want to hear from you, how would you connect this train of belief and reason and

affection?

Well, I have to admit, Tony, that I have always been a little uncomfortable with the sentence

I believe in order that I might understand.

I admit that I have not read the extended context in Anselm or Augustine to know precisely

how they understood those phrases.

And I probably should keep my mouth shut in any critical sense of them.

But the reason for my hesitation, just given the phrase itself, is that believing and knowing

have so many different meanings and connotations, even in the Bible.

Sometimes believing is described as preceding knowing, and sometimes, in fact, more often,

I think knowing is described as preceding believing, a couple of examples, teach me good

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