There’s an old saying: knowledge is power.
Many of us live by this proverb. We go to college—or send our children to college—so that we can acquire the knowledge we need to get good jobs and live happy lives.
While I think this is a good thing—a very good thing—it also had a negative side affect. When we view knowledge as a means of getting ahead, then knowledge becomes a commodity that can be monetized: we have knowledge that someone else doesn’t have and, if they want to benefit from this knowledge, either by learning it themselves or through its application, they have to pay us.
In this way, knowledge divides us and allows us to set ourselves up above others. We become an educated elite, a tension that many feel in our nation today.
Knowledge worked the same way in the ancient world. For example, the temple authorities used their knowledge of scripture to set themselves up as an elite group of folks who lived off the backs of the average Galilean and Judean. Jesus repeatedly criticizes them for this.
But, in the resurrection, the tables are turned.
The Bottom Line: no matter how hard we try to monetize the Good News and lock it up so that only we benefit from it, it’ll break free of the sealed tomb and the locked room!