Series: Youth for Jesus
Number: Vol. 9, No. 11
“Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” (1 Cor 8:1-2NIV)
Those words were penned down by Paul for the Corinthian brethren about two thousand years ago. Yet they are still very much relevant today. And they are calling our attention to the need to always be ready to learn and not assume that we know everything about every matter.
Now from what Paul says in that text, there are three basic things we must know about knowledge. The first is that everybody knows something. In other words, however ignorant someone may be, they still possess some measure of knowledge. They may not know how to fully utilise the knowledge they have. But they know something. So, don’t ever think of anyone as utterly ignorant.
The second thing we need to know about knowledge is that it is capable of producing pride. Knowledge in itself is not meant to produce pride. Rather, it is meant to enlighten, instruct and educate. But it can become a vehicle for conveying pride in the hand of the one that has it. And where that is the case, it will not benefit or build people up as it should.
As Paul shows us in that text, as good as it is to possess useful knowledge, if that knowledge is not being handled by love, it will not build anybody up. On the contrary, it may end up destroying people. For instance, those who make atomic bombs or nuclear weapons do so with knowledge, great knowledge. But how beneficial is their use of this great knowledge to humanity? I am sure you know the answer.
So, unless love is the thing motivating the use of the knowledge we have, it will not do anybody good. It will only ruin lives, homes and even nations. Knowledge, then, is not good in the hand of a loveless person.
The third thing we need to know about knowledge, as we see in our opening text, is that no one has enough of it. That means I don’t know it all and you don’t know it all. Yes, you may think that you know enough or everything about a matter. But that is because you have not yet met someone that will expose your knowledge gap. The day you meet that person is the day you will see that you don’t yet know as much as you should. And that may come with some measure of disgrace, especially if you have been acting in pride about what you think you know.
Therefore, regardless of what you think you know about a matter, always assume that there may be someone else somewhere who knows about it more or better than you. That way, you will be ready to listen to others, learn more and perfect your knowledge. But if you are continually going about with the air of ‘I know it all’, never wanting to keep quiet to listen and learn from others, a day may come when your poverty of knowledge will be exposed in a very shameful way. What, then, will you use to cover your shame?
An expert in the law of Moses, for instance, once asked Jesus about the greatest of the commandments of God. And the Lord answered him in a very direct way. But instead for him to just take the answer and begin to act on it, he tried to show himself as highly knowledgeable by further asking the Lord, “Who is my neighbour?” That, of course, prompted the Lord to tell him a story, the story now popularly known as ‘The good Samaritan’. And when He was done telling the story, the foolishness and self-righteousness of the man had been exposed. So, he went away disgraced. (Cf. Luke 10:25:37)
Now you don’t have to disgrace yourself in a similar manner. And you won’t, if you will continually remind yourself that you don’t know it all and be willing to learn from others. Truly, others may not have much to teach you. But whatever little knowledge you are able to gain from them may someday be the difference between failure and success or honour and disgrace for you. So, mind yourself.
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