Mark’s Gospel Is for Failures

I read a story this week about a guy who, when he was quite young, received some life-changing wisdom from his father. His father said, “Knowledge is power,” and then attributed those words to Francis Bacon. But the boy heard his father saying, “Knowledge is power. France is bacon.” For years afterwards, he struggled to figure out what the expression, “France is bacon,” meant and how those two sentences were connected. In high school, he once asked his teacher what this quote meant; and she went on and on for ten minutes explaining how knowledge was power, but stopped short of clarifying how France is bacon. Frustrated with her avoiding his true question, he cut to the chase, threw up his hands, and asked, “France is Bacon?” And she said, “Yes. Francis Bacon.” For the next decade, whenever someone said the famous line, “Knowledge is power,” he would always “finish”