I have often heard that spiritual practice is more important than spiritual knowledge. Just knowing that you should do good to your fellow man doesn’t do anything to make the world better, you have to actually live that principle in your daily life.

There is something true in this sentiment, but it isn’t as though these two types of testimony live in isolation from one another. Knowledge of the first order precedes practice, and knowledge of the second order follows practice. I’ll explain that further in the course of this study, but for now my point is simply that there is a cyclical relationship between knowledge and practice, and practice typically only occurs because we first gained some sort of knowledge.

Thus, there actually is no “knowledge vs practice.” While I see some merit in describing practice as better than knowledge, I fear that portraying them in this opposing light may create the illusion that we can have practice without any knowledge and perhaps should aspire to that. I believe it would create a clearer picture in our minds if we were to instead say that “knowledge is incomplete without practice.” This, I feel, communicates that practice is a continuation of what began with knowledge, a further step along the same path.

Now, just like practice cements what was previously only knowledge, examples can cement what was previously only theory. I’ve already given the theory, so now I will grow from it with specific examples in scripture. Hopefully those will make clear anything that is still murky from what we have discussed today.