Sometimes we don't appreciate the difference, either. Sometimes we think that we know some things, and we think that our knowledge this makes us wise. But sometimes that so-called "knowledge" just makes us a wise guy (or gal). Nothings tends to make us more arrogant than thinking that we get it. Everyone else doesn’t get it, but we get it. To the Corinthians who were entrenched on opposite sides of the old foods-offered-to-idols debate, Paul gives this warning about what they think they know (1 Corinthians 8:1-3)--
1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. 2 Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But the man who loves God is known by God.Knowledge (either real or imagined) has a tendency to puff us up and make us proud. Paul in effect says, "It's not WHAT you know but WHO you know-- or rather, who knows you!” Paul knows that knowledge is important, but he also knows that it is love that truly builds us up.
My daily bible reading from Proverbs reminds me of something that is easy to forget. No matter now much we think we know, we should be a wise guy--
12 “I am wisdom, and I have good judgment. I also have knowledge and good sense.The warning here is that when we really possess knowledge and wisdom, then will will hate pride and arrogance. We will especially hate them in ourselves. True knowledge never leads us to arrogantly think we know all there is to know. No, true knowledge leads us to know God... and that knowledge always drives us to our knees in humility.
13 If you respect the Lord, you will also hate evil. I hate pride and bragging, evil ways and lies. (Proverbs 8:12-13, NCV)
So… don't we a wise guy!
3 comments:
Becarefull what you build on
It’s funny how knowledge can subtly cause us to slip into the illusion that “we have it all together”. That absurd thought that we are some how “good enough”. I believe that knowledge without good judgment is “wise guy” not “wisdom”. It’s blindness, not sight. God help me to recognize that perceived knowledge can be a trap that leads to arrogance which blinds me. I dare say it blinds us all.
In the day it was common knowledge that the world was flat, everyone taught it was “true” and that made it “true” but there was a person who had the wisdom to know that everyone who was telling him he would fall off the edge of the world was wrong. He was labeled an “arrogant” person because he went against the “accepted flow” of those in the know. Few of those who put him down lived long enough to know the country we live in today. Portugal would have perhaps been our language had they not labeled him as crazy.
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