For those of us in Christ as we look at the sorry state of the vast multitudes of humanity who are lost in their rebellion against the knowledge of God, we should realize what a blessing it is that our God had mercy on us and drew us to Himself, justifying us by grace through faith and now we are no longer in that state of willing ignorance of God. Share your faith with as many as you can with time you have my brethren.
17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. Ephesians 4:17-19 (NASB)
18 ἐσκοτωμένοι τῇ διανοίᾳ ὄντες, ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ θεοῦ διὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τὴν οὖσαν ἐν αὐτοῖς, διὰ τὴν πώρωσιν τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, Ephesians 4:18 (NA28)
In the passage above (Ephesians 4:17-19) the word “ignorance” translates the noun ἄγνοιαν (agnoian) the accusative singular feminine case of ἄγνοια (agnoia) which does mean “ignorance.” This ignorance is not caused by something external, but by man himself. In ancient Greek usage of this word it could refer to a man who lives without knowledge either because he hasn’t heard the truth or because he has refused the truth, and that if he had received it, it would have freed him from his ignorance of his origin. In other words, he just closed his eyes to the truth; he refused to believe what was right in front of him. Do you know anyone like that?
Of course it is obvious that our English word “agnostic” comes from agnoia. The definition of the word certainly exposes these so-called agnostics in our day doesn’t it? They say that they do not believe we can know if there is a God, but they say this only because they do not want to know. They are “willingly ignorant” (2 Peter 3:5). I saw an example of this on an documentary about an Archaeological dig of the Tel at Jericho. It had been dug early in the 20th Century and the archaeologist in charge confirmed the truth about the walls of Jericho falling down just at the it is described in the Book of Joshua. However, later in the 1950’s another archaeologist did more digging there and denounced that the city of Jericho could have existed at the supposed time of the Exodus. Why?
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