Why Learn?

Our primary forebear, John Calvin, opened his massive theological treatise on what Protestants believe – Institutes of the Christian Religion – with these words: “Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God;” followed by, “Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self.” When we learn of the world through all its systems of knowledge, we learn of self and we learn of God; when we learn of God, through liturgy, music, preaching, and teaching, we learn of God and we learn of self. Calvin’s purpose was to show “how [the knowledge of self and the knowledge of God] are interrelated,” we might say “inextricably intertwined.” Our theology and liturgy encompass what we know and experience in the world, in its created beauty and its fallen sadness. Rev. Dr. Larry Hayward preaches on the twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is 2 Timothy 4:9-13, and is read by the Rev. Whitney Fauntleroy.