How well do you know yourself?Terry Dashner…………………..Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013
The ancients said it this way: To thine own self be true, and know thyself. You could define
study of philosophy by this: “Know Thyself.”
Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy and author states this, “You can be knowledgeable without knowing yourself, but you cannot be wise without knowing yourself. For if you do not know yourself, if you are a stranger to yourself. If you have never wondered about knower, only about known, then no matter how much knowledge you have, you do not know who has it.”
Most of predecessors of Socrates focused exclusively on terrestrial and celestial bodies, but Socrates studied only about man and his issues. He wanted to harmonize virtue and vice, wisdom and ignorance and right and wrong. In order to do this, he had to study himself. He spent his life learning himself. Ironically, man who knew more than any other in Greece was executed because they said he corrupted youth with his teachings and did not worship right gods (state gods).
Again professor Kreeft says, “Try to measure earth, and you may succeed (as one ancient Greek, Eratosthenes, actually did), and you may think you are wise; but try to measure yourself and your life’s meaning and things like truth, goodness, and beauty, and you will find that you are swimming in waters far over your head. The world in your head is much bigger than world outside your head.”
To “know thyself” is to know that you are different than beast of field. God created you in His image and likeness. But to know yourself is to know your own limitations. When you have done all you can do as a man or woman, rest in God. You must reach your limits before God can help you. To know yourself is to know that evil is your potential as well as good; therefore, resist urge to do your fellowman wrong. And let God love him through you.
