Doctrine is a helpful servant, but an awful master.
Which is to say that: knowledge of the Biblical truth that salvation flows from a relationship with Jesus is not the same as an actual relationship with Jesus.
And in the Gospel accounts, the relationship led to the knowledge, because through the relationship came the revelation of who Jesus is, and the conviction of who we are and what our need of Jesus is.
This is not to say a clear understanding of truth doesn’t matter, or that the shared experience which is salvation cannot be articulated, and given common expression.
It is to say that its when we follow Jesus that the truth of the Gospel becomes the lived experience of the Gospel.
We cannot know Jesus without following Jesus. Engagement with Jesus, as the misconceptions of the his first disciples show, is necessary to understand Jesus. In a sense, we follow Jesus before we know Jesus. Furthermore, we know Jesus before we know ourselves. For how can we know the truth of ourselves as sinful and misunderstanding, but redeemed and empowered without our first being shown, as it was shown to the first disciples?
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens (Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition), Abingdon, 2014, pg. 55.
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