Bayo’s father left for Houston when Bayo was five. He was an engineer, and the job with an oil services company was too good to refuse. The plan was for the family to join him within two years. The visas never came through, the plan kept changing, and two years became twelve.
Bayo grew up knowing a great deal about his father. He knew his date of birth and his shoe size. He knew he supported Arsenal and could not stand pepper soup. He knew the name of the company he worked for, the town where he had grown up and the scar on his left hand from a childhood accident with a kerosene lamp. Every Sunday evening at seven the phone rang, and Bayo spent ten minutes answering the same questions about school. There were photographs of his father in the parlour, on his mother’s phone, and in a frame beside his own bed. If anyone had set him a quiz about his father, he would have scored full marks.
When Bayo was seventeen, his father came home for good. The whole family went to the international airport in Lagos to meet him. Bayo recognised him the moment he came through the arrivals door, pushing a trolley stacked with boxes. He looked exactly like his photographs. And Bayo stood there, not knowing what to do with his hands. In the end he stepped forward and shook his father’s hand, like a stranger at an interview.
The first months were strange in ways nobody had expected. Bayo did not know that his father hummed old highlife songs while he shaved. He did not know what made him laugh, or what his silence meant when he was upset. He did not know whether he could tease him. He discovered that his father had opinions about how to wash a car, how to greet visitors and how loud music should be on a Saturday morning. All the facts Bayo had collected were true. But he had not known the man.
Many Christians are living in Bayo’s parlour. They know a great deal about God. They could pass the quiz. But they have never quite stepped past the photographs.
Eternal life is a relationship
On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus lifted His eyes to heaven and prayed. John records the prayer in full, and near the beginning Jesus gives a definition we should never forget:
These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” We usually think of eternal life as something that happens after death, life that goes on for ever. That is true, but Jesus describes it first by its quality, not its length. Eternal life is knowing God. It is a relationship with the Father through the Son, and it begins the moment a person believes.
The word know in Scripture carries more weight than it does in ordinary English. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for knowing can describe the most intimate human relationship. “And Adam knew Eve his wife” (Genesis 4:1). That does not mean he had learned facts about her. It means he had been joined to her. Biblical knowing is personal, relational and experiential. It involves the whole person, not just the mind.
PunchlineThe Greek word Jesus uses in John 17 carries the same sense. He is not praying that His disciples would collect accurate information about God, important as that is. He is describing a living acquaintance with God Himself, the kind of knowledge you have of a person you have walked with, talked with and trusted.
This is also the great promise of the new covenant. God said through Jeremiah, and the writer of Hebrews repeats it, that under the new covenant “they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest” (Hebrews 8:11). In the old arrangement, the knowledge of God was mediated largely through priests and prophets. In the new, every believer, from the youngest to the oldest, from the newest convert to the most experienced pastor, is given personal access to God. You do not have to know Him second-hand.
Searching the Scriptures and missing the Person
It is possible to be very close to the truth about God and still not know Him. Jesus said this to the most diligent Bible students of His day:
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
These men knew the Scriptures better than almost anyone alive. Many had memorised large portions of the law and the prophets. They debated the meaning of individual words and argued over exactly how far a man might walk on the Sabbath. And Jesus does not criticise them for studying. He says the Scriptures are exactly the right place to look, because “they are they which testify of me.” The problem was that they stopped at the testimony and refused the Person it pointed to. “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”
That is a sobering possibility for anyone who loves the Bible. You can attend every Bible study, read through the Scriptures every year, own a shelf of commentaries and win every doctrinal argument, and still treat God as a subject rather than a Person. The Scriptures are the photographs in the parlour. They are true. They are given by God, and they are indispensable. But they are given so that we might come to Him.
We must not swing to the opposite error. The answer to dry knowledge is not ignorance. Some people react against cold religion by dismissing doctrine altogether and relying on feelings and impressions. That is dangerous, because a false picture of God will lead the whole life in the wrong direction. Hosea’s lament was that God’s people were “destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6), and the knowledge they lacked was the knowledge of God revealed in His word. We need sound teaching. We need to study.
But accurate information should serve fellowship. Truth is given so that we may know the One who reveals Himself through it. Think of the two disciples walking to Emmaus after the resurrection. Jesus walked with them and explained the Scriptures concerning Himself. Afterwards they said, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32). The Scriptures were opened, and the Person was present. That is how the two belong together.
John records another conversation that shows the difference with great tenderness. When Lazarus died, Jesus arrived at Bethany four days after the burial, and Martha went out to meet Him. Jesus told her, “Thy brother shall rise again.” Martha’s answer was perfectly sound doctrine: “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24). She knew the right belief. She had probably heard it taught all her life. But it was a truth about a distant day, and it gave her very little comfort as she stood outside her brother’s tomb.
Jesus did not correct her doctrine. He brought it into the present and placed it in Himself: “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25). The truth she knew about had a face, and He was standing in front of her. Then He asked her a personal question: “Believest thou this?” That is often where the Lord meets us. He does not dismiss what we have learned. He takes what we know about Him and asks us to trust Him with it, here, in the place where we are grieving.
What God wants us to boast about
Jeremiah lived in a time when Judah was proud of all the wrong things. The nation trusted in its wisdom, its military strength and its wealth, and it was about to lose all three. Into that situation God spoke a word that still cuts through our priorities:
Thus saith the LORD , Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD .
Notice what God does not tell people to glory in. Not wisdom, not might, not riches. Those are the things that most cultures, including our own, admire most. The educated man, the powerful man, the rich man: these are the people whose names are announced at the front of the church and whose cars fill the reserved spaces. God says none of them has anything worth boasting about compared with one thing: “that he understandeth and knoweth me.”
And then God describes what there is to know. “That I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight.” To know God is to know His character. It is to know that He is loyal in love, that He does what is right, that He brings justice. It is to know what He delights in.
That is the difference between knowing about someone and knowing them. Knowing about someone gives you facts. Knowing them gives you a sense of what they love, how they will respond, what grieves them and what brings them joy. Bayo knew his father’s shoe size. He did not know what made his father glad. The prophets constantly called Israel to that second kind of knowledge. Hosea wrote, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). Israel was very religious. The sacrifices were offered on schedule. But the people did not know the God to whom they offered them.
There is a promise in that same chapter of Hosea: “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD” (Hosea 6:3). Knowing God is not a single event. It is something we follow on into, a relationship that deepens over a lifetime. Daniel said that “the people that do know their God shall be strong” (Daniel 11:32). Strength comes from knowing Him, not merely knowing about Him.
Known by God
There is something even deeper than our knowing God, and Paul brings it out in an unexpected place. The Corinthians were arguing about food offered to idols, and the stronger believers were proud of their superior understanding. Paul responds:
Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him.
“Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” Knowledge on its own tends to inflate us. It can make us proud, impatient with others and quick to look down on people who know less. Love builds up. And then Paul turns the whole subject around: “But if any man love God, the same is known of him.”
He says it again in Galatians: “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God” (Galatians 4:9). You can almost hear Paul correcting himself mid-sentence. Yes, you have come to know God. But more importantly, God has come to know you. The initiative is His. Before you ever reached for Him, He knew you and called you.
Jesus describes His relationship with His people in the same terms: “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine” (John 10:14). And again: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Being known by Christ is the foundation of our knowing Him.
There is a solemn side to this truth. Jesus warned that on the last day some would come to Him listing their impressive ministries: “have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils?” And He would answer, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22-23). They knew about Him. They used His name. They did religious work. But there had been no relationship. That warning is not meant to make sincere believers anxious. It is meant to show us what really matters. The question is not how much activity we have performed in His name, but whether we belong to Him.
For the believer, this is deeply comforting. Your relationship with God does not rest on how well you know Him. It rests on the fact that He knows you. On the days when your understanding feels thin and your prayers feel weak, you are still fully known and fully loved by the Shepherd who laid down His life for you.
NuggetYour knowledge of God will always be partial and growing. His knowledge of you is complete, and it is the knowledge of a Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep.
The Son makes the Father known
How do we come to know God personally? Not by imagination. Left to ourselves, we tend to create a god in our own image. A severe person finds a severe god easy to believe in. A person who avoids every difficult conversation may imagine a god who never confronts anything. We need God to reveal Himself, and He has done so in His Son.
John writes, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). The word translated declared is the word from which we get exegesis. Jesus is the explanation of the Father. He has drawn the Father out and made Him known. And Jesus Himself said, “neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matthew 11:27).
So the way to know God is to come to the Son and to watch Him carefully. Return to the Gospels with a willingness to see. Watch how Jesus listens, what He corrects and how He gives Himself. Notice whom He touches and whom He confronts. Read His compassion alongside His commands. Do not ask Him to become a portrait assembled only from the parts you find comfortable.
As you read, respond personally. A passage about mercy calls for more than an accurate definition. You may need to receive forgiveness you have been refusing to believe. A passage about love may expose a relationship you have kept out of your prayers. The word becomes part of fellowship as you answer the Lord who speaks through it.
This need not involve elaborate language. You can pause over a verse and tell the Father what you have understood, what you do not yet understand and where you need help to obey. That kind of honesty may make prayer simpler than the prayers you have been performing. Moses prayed, “shew me now thy way, that I may know thee” (Exodus 33:13), and Scripture says that “the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exodus 33:11). Jesus calls His disciples friends for the same reason: “for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:15). Friends talk. Friends tell each other the truth.
Knowledge that shows up in the life
John wrote his first letter to churches troubled by people who claimed a superior knowledge of God while living in ways that contradicted Him. He gives a simple test:
And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
John is not demanding sinless performance before anyone may enjoy assurance. Just two verses earlier he wrote, “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). He expects believers to stumble, and he points them to Christ when they do. What John refuses to accept is a claim to know God that coexists comfortably with a settled disregard for what God says.
Knowing someone changes you. Bayo began, over time, to pick up his father’s phrases and habits. He learned what pleased him and began, without anyone forcing him, to do those things. That is what John describes. “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” Knowledge of God shows up in a life that begins to resemble His.
Obedience does not purchase God’s willingness to reveal Himself. It is the fitting response to the Lord we claim to know. Yet Jesus did connect obedience with deeper knowledge: “he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). A relationship in which one person continually refuses to listen has a problem that more vocabulary cannot solve.
Knowledge of God becomes visible especially in how we treat other people. A person may win theological arguments and still nurse contempt toward a brother. John does not allow accurate vocabulary to hide that darkness. It is possible to explain forgiveness beautifully while refusing to address an injury we caused. In that case the need is not another explanation of forgiveness. It is a conversation in which we confess the wrong and ask how to make it right.
Think about a command you have learned to discuss at a safe distance. Perhaps it concerns honesty, patience or the way you treat someone who has no influence to offer you. What would change if you approached it as a word from the Lord who loves you and calls you to follow Him there? The response may be small. You correct a misleading impression. You listen without preparing a defence. You give someone time you would normally reserve for people who can advance your plans. Such acts will not make you impressive. They will make the truth more recognisable in the life you actually lead.
A love that passes knowledge
Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3 shows us where all of this is heading. He is praying for believers who already know the gospel well. He has spent two chapters explaining it to them. And now he asks God for something more:
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
“To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” Paul is not contradicting himself. He is saying that there is a kind of knowing that goes beyond information. You can know about the love of Christ in your head and still need to know it in your experience. And even when you know it truly, you will never know it exhaustively. It will always be larger than your ability to contain it. We can know truly without knowing completely.
Notice two other things about this prayer. First, it depends on the Spirit. Paul asks that believers be “strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man,” so that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith. Knowing God is not something we achieve by sheer mental effort. It is something the Spirit works in us as we trust.
Second, it happens “with all saints.” Knowing God is personal, but it is never private in the sense of being isolated. Other believers help us recognise aspects of God’s goodness we would overlook on our own. We receive encouragement through their faith, correction through their wisdom and practical care through their service. A spirituality that rejects all fellowship soon becomes narrow, because without other voices we hear only our own assumptions and mistake their familiarity for maturity.
There will be days when prayer feels ordinary and Bible reading feels dry. That does not mean fellowship with God has failed. A faithful marriage is not measured only by its most intense conversations. Much of it is built on ordinary days: shared meals, small kindnesses, conversations about nothing in particular. In a far greater relationship, we learn to remain with God through the daily practices of hearing His word, speaking honestly to Him and doing what He has made clear.
If you recognise that your knowledge of God has stayed largely at the level of facts, begin with the Lord rather than with self-reproach. Bring Him a real question. Read a passage slowly enough to hear its argument. Respond to what it shows you with trust or obedience. Let another believer know where you need help.
About a year after his father came home, Bayo’s father decided to teach him to drive. Every Saturday morning they went out in the old Peugeot to the quiet streets near the estate. The first few weeks were difficult. His father shouted when Bayo stalled at a junction. Bayo sulked all the way home. One Saturday they had a proper argument, the first real argument of their lives, and both of them said things they regretted.
The next morning his father knocked on his door. He sat on the end of the bed and said, “I am sorry I shouted. I have been away so long that I do not know how to be your father. Will you help me learn?” Bayo told me later that it was the first time he felt he had really met him.
By the end of that year, Bayo could tell from the way his father closed the gate whether he had had a good day at work. He knew which of his father’s silences meant anger and which meant tiredness. He could make him laugh. He had discovered that the man who could not stand pepper soup would eat any amount of his mother’s moi moi, and that he hummed highlife because his own father had sung it to him.
Punchline“I used to know everything about my father,” Bayo said. “Now I know my father.”
That is the invitation of the gospel. You can stop collecting photographs. The Father has come home to you in His Son, and He has given you His Spirit so that you can know Him. It will take a lifetime, and there will be awkward seasons and ordinary ones. But eternal life is this: that you might know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Which do you know more about: facts concerning God, or God Himself? How can you tell the difference in your own life?
- John 5:39-40 describes people who searched the Scriptures but would not come to Christ. In what ways might your Bible reading stop at the “photographs”?
- According to Jeremiah 9:24, what does God delight in? How well do you know those things about Him from experience?
- How does it comfort you to know that you are known by God (Galatians 4:9), even when your knowledge of Him feels weak?
- Which believers in your life help you know God better? Whom could you help in the same way?
This Week
Choose one Gospel this week and read one chapter each day, slowly. After each reading, write down one thing you saw about what Jesus is like: what He loved, how He treated someone, what He corrected. Then speak to the Father about it in your own words, telling Him what you understood and what you need help to trust or obey. At the end of the week, tell another believer one thing you came to know about the Lord, not just about the passage.
A Prayer
Father, I do not want only to know about You. I want to know You. Thank You that You have revealed Yourself in Your Son, and that eternal life is to know You and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. Forgive me for the times I have searched the Scriptures and stopped short of coming to You. Thank You that You have known me first, and that I am fully known and fully loved. Strengthen me by Your Spirit in my inner man, let Christ dwell in my heart by faith, and teach me with all Your people to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. Let what I learn of You change the way I live and the way I love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.