It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
Proverbs 25:2 (ESV)
In 1849, missionary and explorer David Livingstone received the Royal Geographical Society’s gold medal. On the first of his many African expeditions, he had traveled over 600 miles across the Kalahari Desert in search of Lake Ngami in Botswana. Livingstone was consumed with a passion for discovery, for searching out things previously unseen by Western eyes.
Creation reveals God’s glory (chavod, lit. weight, majesty), so as God reveals things through His handiwork, He glorifies Himself, making known His gravitas and splendor. Yet it is also part of His glory to conceal things—as people realize how many of creation’s riches are still hidden from them, they realize how little they know in comparison with their Creator. God has fashioned an orderly universe, one which rewards careful study. If it were chaotic, science and technology would fail.
Proverbs 25:2 speaks of inquisitive kings, and two examples readily present themselves. Solomon wrote Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, which showed him to be a careful student of the human condition, the intricacies of statecraft, and the social and physical environment of his reign. Hezekiah, who gathered proverbs such as this one (25:1), was a master of applied technology. Men still marvel at the tunnel he dug through solid rock to supply Jerusalem with spring water (2 Kings 20:20). The truths and the water were there all along, but by God’s grace, these kings gained special access as they made the most of their opportunities.
What is true of kings is also true of their citizens, and David Livingstone is a prime example. He was a scientific explorer of the first order, but he had a higher calling: “I view the end of the geographical feat as the beginning of the missionary enterprise.”[1] His aim was not knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but for the good of his fellow man. For instance, he dreamed of a cure for “African fever”: “I would go into the parts where it prevails most, and try to discover if the natives have a remedy for it. I must make many enquiries of the river people in this quarter. What an unspeakable mercy it is to be permitted to engage in this most holy and honourable work!”[2]
Some have tried to divide human labor into the sacred and secular. For Livingstone, it was all sacred, and it upset some of his supporters, who showed themselves to be shortsighted:
Nowhere have I appeared as anything else but a servant of God, who has simply followed the leadings of His hand. . . [B]y His help having got information, which I hope will lead to more abundant blessing being bestowed on Africa than heretofore, am I to hide the light under a bushel merely because some will consider it not sufficiently, or even at all, missionary? Knowing that some persons do believe that opening up a new country to the sympathies of Christendom was not a proper work of an agent of a Missionary Society to engage in, I now refrain from taking any salary from the Society with which I was connected; so no pecuniary loss is sustained by anyone.[3]
Admirable is the pastor who encourages scientific inquiry and other academic pursuits. As the preacher searches out the things of God’s special revelation in Scripture, scientists and scholars search out the things of God’s general revelation in Creation. The Lord is kind to reveal Himself in both of these realms.
[1] George Seaver, David Livingstone: His Life and Letters (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), 267.
[2] Ibid., 169.
[3] Ibid., 284.