Know the word of God not in order that by doing so you might be saved; know it rather so that unlike the many you are not easily deceived. You may find that, evidently, a great many of the so-called novel ideas of the present were made without a clue that 'God', if you will, already laid profound discourse on or against them ages ago: no man has gone against God in such a way that God, from the beginning, did not already expect him to. Then, insofar as this, you will remain clear in that it is not at all that the Christian should be against newness; quite the opposite really – for a major point of Christianity is about one constantly being made new in Christ – it is only that many people are not actually bringing true newness to the table, and this is precisely because they do not first apply (or let alone even know) the wisdom of old.
