My Right to Be Ignorant

If I am to follow the example of Paul—and of Christ—who gave up personal rights for the sake of the gospel (1 Cor. 9 and Phil. 2), then I must at least be willing to give up my right to be ignorant of things that bore me. No, I cannot be so diversified that I never learn anything well. I need not be scattered. My time and energy are finite. But if I am unwilling—and a willing or unwilling attitude, I think, is key—unwilling to discipline myself to care about tennis, or cricket, or soccer; unwilling to listen when I have the right to speak;  unwilling to learn which way is north (or south!); then I am exercising a right that may hinder me from being the global-minded, useful Christian that I otherwise might have been. To such a list we could add more significant data: the persecution of Christians in Mexico or Nigeria, the existence of something called Khmer, or the demographics of Provo, Utah. I have a right to be ignorant. But to insist on this right is not the way of a Christ-follower. Such discipline to care will, as always, require grace.