Knowing and Doing

   Each package of cigarettes sold in the United States must carry a warning label about the dangers of cigarette use: “Cigarettes cause cancer,” “Cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease,” “Smoking during pregnancy stunts fetal growth,” or “Smoking can kill you.” Yet cigarettes are sold by the pack or carton. A cigarette user saYS, “I’m trying to quit,” but he purchases his next package, unseals it, and lights up. The problem is knowing the dangers but continuing to smoke anyway.

   Many people are switching to a new form of nicotine ingestion called “vaping,” but the dangers are well publicized: vape aerosol can contain formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein, diacetyl, or heavy metals. Vaping is associated with increased risk of heart attack and stroke. The problem is knowing the dangers but continuing to vape anyway.

   I know that for every extra pound of body fat I carry, my heart has to pump blood through additional miles of capillaries. “According to a Mayo Clinic cardiologist, every pound of weight gained means about 5 miles of blood vessels. With the heart beating roughly 100,000 times a day, that’s 500,000 miles of extra pumping per day for just one pound of fat.” I need to step on the scale. Ouch! The problem is knowing the dangers yet continuing to overeat.

   In Jesus’ parable about the vineyard and the tenant farmers, the owner sent servant after servant to collect the rent, but the tenants treated the messengers badly—beating some, shaming others, and even killing some. So the owner decided to send his son, thinking they would surely honor him. “But those tenant farmers said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’” (Mark 12:7) The problem is that the tenants knew the messenger was the heir, yet they continued with their nefarious plan to kill him anyway.

   In another instance, Jesus told about a rich young man who came to Jesus because he knew he needed eternal life. After Jesus described to him a way to gain what he sought, the young man turned away because he was not willing to follow through with his quest. (Mark 10:17-31) His problem was that he knew he needed eternal life but was not willing to give of himself.

   There is a vast difference between knowing the good and doing the good. These farmers knew the good—the heir—but they chose to do the bad—kill him. A noble goal is to bring knowing the good into line with doing the good.

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: “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?” T