(John 13:15–17)
“For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” — John 13:15–17
The Paradox of Knowing
In John 13, Jesus kneels to wash the feet of His disciples, a moment so ordinary that its shock lies precisely in its ordinariness. When He rises, He does not say, “If you understand these things,” but “If you know.” The verb is οἴδατε (oidate): a form of οἶδα, meaning to perceive, to grasp inwardly. It describes knowledge that has already settled into the conscience.
Yet Jesus immediately ties that knowing to doing. Knowledge, without enactment, is sterile; truth, when unembodied, remains theoretical. Johannine discipleship, therefore, collapses the modern separation between theology and praxis.
Knowing Beyond Information
Contemporary cognitive science unexpectedly affirms Jesus’ logic. Educational theorists such as John Dewey and David Kolb insist that real learning is cyclical:
experience → reflection → conceptualisation → active experimentation.¹
Knowledge that is not enacted quickly decays. Philosopher Michael Polanyi described this as tacit knowing, “we know more than we can tell.”²
In neuroscience, the distinction between declarative (“knowing-that”) and procedural (“knowing-how”) memory reveals that skills become encoded only through repeated action.³ The juggler’s brain literally reshapes; the pianist’s motor cortex rewires through practice.⁴ In other words, doing alters the self that knows.
Thus, when Jesus couples “If you know” with “blessed are you if you do,” He exposes the futility of information divorced from incarnation. Blessedness is not the prize for obedience; it is the state of a person whose knowing and doing have become one.
The Conditional “If”
The small conditional particle εἰ (“if”) carries quiet gravity. It assumes the disciples do know, yet leaves room for freedom. Jesus does not coerce; He invites. The phrase could be rendered, “Since you perceive this, you will be blessed if you enact it.” The grammar mirrors divine gentleness: God never overrides volition, yet the conditional warns that blessedness is forfeited in non-doing. To know and not do is to unravel the integrity of the self.
Knowing Is Relational
Foot-washing is an interpersonal act. It presupposes an other, one whose dignity you must touch without superiority. Jesus’ command therefore creates a relational epistemology: we come to know the truth through serving others. Sociologists Lave and Wenger call this situated learning; we become who we are within communities of practice.⁵
Notice the diversity of those present: fishermen, a tax-collector, a zealot, a betrayer. Service among such difference becomes the test of discipleship. Knowing Christ means washing feet that disagree, disappoint, or even betray.
What Doing Does to the Brain
Neuroscience adds yet another layer.
Acts of generosity activate the brain’s reward circuits (ventral striatum), releasing joy.⁶ Compassion training reshapes neural pathways toward resilience and positive affect.⁷ Even observing others’ actions can engage mirror-neuron systems, enhancing empathy.⁸
The brain itself witnesses to a theology of embodiment: doing mercy strengthens the capacity for mercy; acting in humility wires humility into the nervous system. Jesus’ call to do is not moralism; it is neuro-formation.
The Blessing in the Doing
The Greek word for “blessed,” makarios, signifies not merely happiness but flourishing congruence with divine reality. In this light, Jesus’ statement reads almost empirically: those who translate perception into action will find their being aligned with God’s rhythm.
Knowledge divorced from obedience leads to fragmentation; action born of revelation leads to integration. Knowing becomes communion. Doing becomes worship.
Conclusion
To “know” as Jesus means is to perceive truth deeply enough that the body cannot remain still. Theology that does not stoop to wash feet is still speculation. But the moment knowledge bends its knees, revelation becomes relationship, and the servant, in serving, discovers the blessedness of the Master.
Practical Application: Knowing by Serving
The measure of our knowing is not how eloquently we can explain truth but how instinctively we embody it. Knowledge matures only when it becomes muscle memory.
Begin small:
– choose one act of service that costs your comfort
– listen longer, forgive quicker,
-give quietly,
– or wash metaphorical feet where pride wants to stand tall.
Let every act become catechesis. Let service train the soul the way repetition trains a pianist. In the doing, understanding deepens; in the humility of action, revelation takes root.
When next you say, “I know,” ask yourself, has my knowing yet stooped low enough to love?
Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You did not lecture us into truth; You knelt and revealed it through love. Teach me to know as You know; not as possession of facts but as participation in grace.
Let my hands remember what my mind forgets: that to serve is to see, and to do is to dwell in Your blessing.
Form in me a knowing that moves, a theology with knees on the floor.
In Your Mighty, Holy, and Beautiful Name Messiah King Jesus,
Amen.
TRACK TO ENJOY:
Bibliography
1.) John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 35; David A. Kolb, Experiential Learning (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984).
2.)Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (London: Routledge, 1966), 4.
3.) Larry R. Squire and John T. Wixted, “The Cognitive Neuroscience of Human Memory,” Annual Review of Psychology 62 (2011): 262–64.
4.) Bogdan Draganski et al., “Changes in Grey Matter Induced by Training,” Nature 427 (2004): 311–12.
5.) Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 52.
6.) Jorge Moll et al., “Human Fronto–Mesolimbic Networks Guide Decisions about Charitable Donation,” PNAS 103, no. 42 (2006): 15623–28.
7.) Tania Singer and Olga Klapper, “The Neuroscience of Compassion,” Current Opinion in Psychology 28 (2019): 80–86.
8.) Giacomo Rizzolatti and Corrado Sinigaglia, Mirrors in the Brain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
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