Is It Necessary to Study Evil? by J. S. WASHBURN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 4, 1908

Is It Necessary to Study Evil?

By J. S. WASHBURN

God has placed in man a desire to know, to understand, a craving for knowledge, yet there are some things it is best not to know. There is knowledge that is not power but weakness. Much that the world counts important is best not learned. Satan inspired in Eve the curiosity to eat of the tree that God had forbidden our first parents to touch. This was not only the tree of knowledge of good, but of evil. If it was not necessary for the human race to understand evil then, it is not necessary now. For this reason he who knows most of fiction, and knows most of the great plays and great actors and popular theatrical performances, has a store of knowledge which is practically worse than ignorance.

Teach the truth. That will destroy error. It is not necessary for a man to know the location of every saloon, gambling house, and questionable resort in a great city to be truly intelligent in the knowledge of the city which is valuable. It is not necessary for us to know all the arguments of infidels, and to be intimately acquainted with all the delusions of the enemy, in order to defeat him when the Lord permits us to come face to face with evil. Truth, what positive truth, is the all-important thing. Our teaching should be positive rather than negative. Not to destroy another, either argumentatively or in any other way, but rather to build up and strengthen and help, should be our work. How much there is in that wonderful, simple text of Scripture, “Overcome evil with good.” God calls his workers to do, not to un-do, to build up, not to destroy, to know and teach good rather than evil.

J. S. WASHBURN.