To Know Or Be Known

O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise;  you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue,    O Lord, you know it completely.  

Psalm 139:1-4

Jean-Luc Marion argues that modern philosophy underwent a profound shift. Instead of asking what it means to live wisely or faithfully, philosophy increasingly became a project of mastery. We came to believe that to know something is to gain power over it. Knowledge became the pathway to prediction, control, efficiency, and eventually ownership.

We study nature to harness it. We map human behavior to influence it. We collect data to manage people. We know things, so we can use them.

Marion calls this one of the defining movements of modernity. Once knowledge becomes control, the world slowly turns into a collection of objects—resources to be managed, improved, bought, sold, or consumed.

That is a brilliant diagnosis of our culture, but it raises other questions about why we so desperately want to know. Is it because certainty promises safety, or because control quiets our anxiety, or because if we know enough, we imagine we can protect ourselves from loss, failure, or surprise?

The Church has not escaped this temptation. Sometimes theology becomes another strategy for certainty. We seek the correct doctrine, the right interpretation, the perfect church model, or the proven leadership system. We assume that if we can simply know enough, we will finally possess the Church's future.

But is that right or does the Gospel points in another direction?

The first question God asks humanity is not, "What do you know?" it is,"Where are you?" The question is relational before it is intellectual.

When Jesus calls the disciples, he does not invite them into a classroom. He invites them into a relationship. "Follow me." The invitation is not first to understand but to accompany him.  It is not first to master theology, but to love intimately.

Christian faith has always insisted that we are known before we know. The Psalmist declares, "O Lord, you have searched me and known me." Paul reminds the Corinthians that “now we know only in part, but one day we shall know fully, even as we have been fully known.”

The initiative always belongs to God.

A leader driven by certainty often tries to control outcomes. Congregations become problems to solve. People become projects to manage. Mission becomes a strategic plan. Success is measured by predictability, efficiency, and measurable results.

The temptation is subtle, but even ministry can become another technology of control.

But leaders who know they are already known by God lead differently. They are less anxious about having every answer because their identity is not built upon being right. They can ask genuine questions because they are not defending themselves. They can listen because they do not need to dominate the conversation. They can accompany people through uncertainty without rushing to resolve every tension. They understand that discernment is not mastering God's will but recognizing God's presence.

The Church does not need leaders who promise certainty. The Church needs leaders who trust relationships more than control. Congregations are not machines to optimize. They are communities to love.

The Gospel is not information to possess. It is a life to inhabit.

Perhaps the deepest question is not whether we know enough, but whether we have become willing to relinquish our need to control long enough to discover that we are already known.

There is extraordinary freedom in that realization. The need to control begins to loosen its grip. The need to prove ourselves begins to fade. The need to have the final answer gives way to the courage to remain present.

Christian leadership begins not with certainty but with surrender. Not with mastery but with attentiveness. Not with possessing the truth, but with allowing ourselves to be possessed by the God who has known us all along.

That may be the most liberating movement of all: from trying to know everything to resting in the One who already knows us.