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Increasingly it becomes apparent that the most crucial role in human life is that of the diagnostician. Nothing is so important as the capacity to make accurate assessments, to be able to discern among a multitude of possible alternatives the one that needs to be chosen.

Any mechanic worth his salt can repair a car. It is knowing what to repair that sets certain mechanics apart and makes us value them above others. All doctors can prescribe medication and most can provide the treatment necessary to help our bodies fight diseases. But not all doctors have an equal ability to diagnose what needs treating, and that ability is the crucial element, really the first step, in the healing process.

Unfortunately, so much of the time in life proper diagnosis is what never takes place. The real problems never get identified and the crucial needs get overlooked. I heard the other day about a man who got pulled over by a traffic cop for speeding. "Just how fast do you think you were going?" asked the policeman. "I was only going forty," said the driver. "Oh, no, you weren't," responded the officer. "I clocked you at sixty." "No way!" returned the man. "I was only going forty!" "Sixty!" said the cop. "Forty!" said the man. And so they argued back and forth until finally the man's wife, who had been sitting quietly in the front seat, said to the officer: "There's no sense arguing with my husband when he's had too much to drink."

Speeding, you see, was the least of her husband's problems. It just happened to be the one the officer had identified. So often it is like that in life. Where we humans focus our attention may not be at all the areas that most need our attention. An inadequate diagnosis results in a failure to concentrate on the real issue, and life is thereby thrown off course. We employ enormous time and energy to solve problems, but they turn out to be the wrong problems. We boast of our amazing achievements, and they are considerable, but tragically we continue to overlook or to ignore the things that are most important to humankind.

And there may be no greater misdiagnosis than the belief in knowledge as a panacea for the world's ills. For centuries the belief has held sway that humankind's chief problem is ignorance and our greatest need is for more knowledge. If only we knew more, if only we had greater wisdom and understanding, we could make this world the kind of place we all want it to be. It was a belief that dominated the ancient world, underlying the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. To come to know truth was seen as the highest purpose of human beings and ultimately the avenue to fulfillment.

In New Testament times, a similar notion ran through the philosophy called Gnosticism, which for several centuries posed an enormous threat to the early Church and led to the refinement of Christian theology. It claimed that the way to life was through the superior wisdom and the deeper spirituality that it alone provided. Essentially it advocated salvation through knowledge, its own brand of knowledge of course.

And something of that belief is still with us in the notion, so widespread in our day, that the answer to all of our problems is better education. What's wrong with American society? "Nothing that an overhaul of our educational system could not solve!" is the answer most commonly given. And the specifics pointed to include better schools backed by an enlightened educational philosophy, more able and less politically motivated administrators, a higher level of support for teachers, and great commitment to education among parents. Knowledge is the cornerstone on which an enlightened society pins its hopes. Is that not deemed by perhaps the majority in our society to be an unassailable truth, ranking right up there with the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule? Anyone who would dare say anything to the contrary today would run the risk of being labeled a fool!

But get this down as an unassailable fact: The Bible would never agree with that assessment! Its diagnosis of the human problem, and hence our greatest need, is totally different. Granted that throughout history the Scriptures have provided the stimulus and motivation for practically every significant educational endeavor our world has known, but never do the biblical writers identify the fundamental human problem as ignorance, the fact that we don't know enough. Our problem rather is that we don't do what we already know we ought to do. Action doesn't necessarily follow knowledge. Knowing the truth is not the same thing as living by it.

When David, the Old Testament king, had an affair with Bathsheba and in the aftermath sent her husband, Uriah, to his death, he was not acting out of ignorance. His problem was not a failure to understand that adultery was wrong and murder was a sin. There is no question that he was as familiar with the seventh and eighth commandments as we are today, probably more familiar. He just ignored them when they conflicted with what he wanted to do. On the eve of the crucifixion, was it ignorance that led to Peter's denial of his Lord? He just didn't know any better? Would greater knowledge have prevented Judas from betraying Jesus? Or what of those whose stories saturate the headlines today, who brutally attack, rape, and kill innocent people - is their problem in any way a failure of knowledge?

Make no mistake about it, the fundamental problem of human beings is not a lack of knowledge, but rather the unwillingness to live by what is already known to be right and good. It is our readiness, when convenient, to forget what we know and instead to do what we desire, understanding full well that our actions may violate the highest and the best.

That is why the message of the Bible unfailingly focuses, not on the word "education," but on another word: "remember." Remember! Bring back to mind what is already known. Get in touch again with reality and let it be at work in your life. Wasn't that finally the message at the very heart of Jesus' teaching? In the final analysis, there wasn't much by way of new information that Jesus taught. Most of what he said had been said before. He merely elucidated, expanded, and placed a different emphasis on what was already known. When asked what was the greatest commandment, for example, he didn't announce some new law, but rather reiterated the old one: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. Do that and you will live."

Jesus understood that what was lacking in human life was not so much a knowledge of the truth as the desire and the motivation to live by the truth. And so he sought to remind people of the God who is the source of life and the one on whose goodness we humans are totally dependent. Think of his words in the Sermon on the Mount: "Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear." For Jesus worry was a futile, debilitating activity. But how does one avoid it? Does he not say that it is by remembering, by bringing back into consciousness old, familiar realities, not by learning something new? "Look at the birds of the air," he said, or "consider the flowers of the field." Their growth and sustenance is not dependent upon worry and effort. Something entirely different sustains them - namely, the providential care of God, who is the source and provider of all that lives. Well, said Jesus, human beings matter to God infinitely more than birds and flowers, so be confident that God will sustain us. Remember that and let its truth permeate your being. That is Jesus' word!

And the same message dominates the writings of the apostle Paul. For Paul, the greatest need of the people to whom he wrote was not some new truth, but to remember what they already knew. The second chapter of his letter to the Philippians spells it out: "Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who ..." and Paul goes on to remind readers of Jesus' life: how he emptied himself and became a servant, how he laid aside any personal desires in seeking to do the will of his Heavenly Father. "Remember him and become like him" was Paul's admonition. According to Paul, that is what the world needs more than anything else - people whose goal is to become like Jesus.

And what will make that happen is not the acquisition of new knowledge, not more learning, but the willingness to make Jesus Christ more completely the Lord of life. What we need is to live so close to Christ that we become like him, to know him so intimately that his life and purpose dominate our being. When all is said and done, the question we must all answer - and it is the only question that matters - is not "How much do we know?" but "Is Jesus Christ the one who has undisputed authority over our lives? Is he Lord over our values, our relationships, our time and talent, our money, our home, indeed, our whole world?" Not more knowledge, you see, but more commitment to Christ!

Could that be why Jesus, in the most sacred hour when he met in the Upper Room with his disciples for the last time before his death and shared with them the bread and wine that symbolized his body and blood, said it again: "Remember"? He did say it, you recall: "Do this as often as you will in remembrance of me." Realizing that in the days ahead his friends would face trials and danger, that they would become confused and bewildered, ground down by the pressures of life, Jesus knew that what finally would sustain them and hold them steady would be the realities they had discovered in him. And so he asked them to return as often as they were able to the setting that would remind them of him. They were to eat the bread and drink the wine, symbols of his life poured out for the world. For by so doing they would get in touch once more with the Source of their salvation, the One who made them whole, the One whose example they were to emulate, and the One who promised to be with them to the end of time. They would need that desperately!

And do we not need it today, you and I - desperately?