Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. - 1 Corinthians 8:1
I don't remember hearing this verse before. Maybe it is a different translation (New Revised Standard Version) than I have heard before. Regardless, there is a sort of simple elegance to it. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
I can really see how it is that knowledge puffs up. Knowledge is something that we can earn on our own. Study, apply yourself, and you can obtain knowledge. Because we earn our knowledge, it gives us a certain sense of self importance. So many of us take great pride in how much we know, but outside of how much it might help us in our careers, what good is it? This is especially true if it leads to pride. Think about it, unless your name is Ken Jennings (the guy that won $1.5 million on Jeopardy), how many of us are going to be remembered for how much we know?
Love is different. I don't know that it is possible to make yourself love more. Where knowledge is all about ourselves, love is all about other people. That's where so much of the building up takes place. When you love, you build up other people, and they in turn build you up.
Both puffing and building will cause something to grow in size. When I think of something being puffed up, I immediately think of a balloon. A balloon inflates, it expands, but it is full of nothing but hot air. All it takes is a pin prick, and it is gone. Building something, on the other hand, takes time and effort. It grows slowly. But it is solid. A structure that is built well, on a firm foundation, can withstand quite a bit of force, and it can last. How long have the pyramids or the Great Wall of China been standing?
This verse was part of one of the readings in church this past Sunday (Feb 1), and, in a case of the Lord working in mysterious ways (OK maybe not really mysterious), I was able to work it into the lesson that I had for my 7th grade confirmation class. The theme of confirmation for the 7th graders is church history, and this week we were discussing the Counter Reformation, the 30 Years War, and the Inquisition. Pleasant stuff, huh? Earlier, the kids were so glad when we were through with the persecutions that the early church faced, and I could tell that they were disheartened to see so many of the same things happening again, only this time it was Christians doing it to other Christians. I pointed out to them that what we were talking about may have happened in the 1500s, but we aren't far removed from people writing books explaining what to do if your child married a Catholic. We talked about the difference between something being puffed up and built up, about how love emanates from God, but knowledge emanates from man. And then we talked about how it was knowledge, or at least what people believed to be knowledge, was at the root of much of what we were discussing. Wars were fought because one group thought that the knew better than everybody else. The inquisition was based greatly on the premise of I'm right, you're wrong.
There is one final point that I would like to make. Knowledge stands alone. Love stands with others. Like the old adage says, "United we stand, divided we fall." When we base our lives on knowledge, we are standing alone, and easily toppled. When we base our lives on love, by its nature, we are building up others, and they are in turn building us up. When tough times come, we have others to lean on, and that makes us all stronger. Knowledge puffs up. Love builds up. On which foundation will you base your life?
3 comments:
Good post! It can be hard to strike a balance sometimes. Knowledge if valuable, but our pursuit of and application of it must be governed by love. Interesting to note that faith, hope and love will abide (First Corinthians, I think) and everything else will pass away. Including knowledge.
This is good stuff that is always important for us to remind ourselves of, so that we don't get target and end up in a place we don't want to be.
About the only other point I might make.
Knowledge by itself is maybe close to valueless and leads to bad things such as being puffed up.
However, if you mix Knowledge with Love, maybe you end up with Wisdom.
And Wisdom is good.
And God will give wisdom to us if we ask.
As I was writing this post, I was afraid that I was denigrating knowledge. That, of course, was not my intent. The complete denigration of knowledge has been tried before. It is normally referred to as the Dark Ages.
I like the thoughts about faith, hope and love abiding, and that Knowledge + Love = Wisdom (though I would have to think about that some more - I'll leave that with a might, like you did, Carl).
When I think of Wisdom, there are a couple of things that come to mind. First is the recognition that, the more I know, the more I realize that I don't know. That thought is humbling, and Wisdom is humble. The second, of course is from Proverbs 9:10 (and Psalms 111:10), "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom...." Of course, Proverbs 1:7 states, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge...."
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