Knowledge without love? WHO GETS THE GLORY?
Where would we be if we had great knowledge but no love? Imagine if our entire generation decided that knowledge was all that mattered. What would be the result? We would know how to operate using all our medical skill but, we would not care enough about people to cure them. We would know how to cultivate the best crops but, would not make an effort to feed the poor. We would study from the minds of our greatest teachers but, would not bother to teach. We would use our intellect to amass great storehouses of wealth but, we would never donate. If we created a generation that cared only about knowledge and not about love, then eventually our world would cease to exist because we would know how to create life but we would choose not to do so. We would know how to fight and choose to destroy, for there would be no love or compassion to council our actions. We would create the greatest of technologies, polluting our atmosphere in the process because we would not care about the consequences and we would have great ambition with no restraint and no pause for our fellow man.
Knowledge divorced from love is a dangerous thing. One does not need Scripture verses to help us with this insight. We just have to look at our society and we can easily see how knowledge without Godly love has damaged our land. Our society continues to create new technologies or products at the expense of our fellow man. Cigarettes are still created knowing that the product damages the body, drugs are advertised knowing that some side effect could permanently damage someone. People still consummate their love but choose to kill the unborn outcome and our society continues to look down upon anyone that can not afford a car, a home or a decent meal. Great knowledge is the battle cry for ridding ourselves of prayer in school, the Ten Commandments in our courtrooms and even the pledge of allegiance. Even marriage is attacked on behalf of knowledge for with unrestrained thought supposedly comes worldly enlightenment that puts man first and God totally out of the picture.
Knowledge gained to fuel ones pride and not to better facilitate one’s service to God and neighbor is foolishness and vanity. Paul clarifies this thought when he says, “We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up! As a child I remember hearing my classmates yell, “I know something you don’t know”. They were proud of the fact that they were one up on others. There was no love in their tone. I am not sure anyone taught them to express their knowledge in this way. I know WHAT taught them though. Sin! When I was a child, I am sure I felt a little bit more superior then others when I knew something someone else did not. As I grew older I had classmates make sure they showed everyone how they earned an A+ when the rest of us earned “B’s”. Pride was the ruler in that example, not love. Now we would think that when we became mature adults things would be different from childhood. Owning knowledge for the sake of knowledge and comparing what we know to what others know (you would think) would not be a factor. Yet when talking about other denominations that do not agree with what we agree with in scripture, I hear a sense of pride in owning knowledge that others do not have. Sometimes judgment is rendered upon anyone that might think differently. Just like that Pharisee who once prayed, “thank you Lord that I am not like that so and so”, so often we have that same response.
Have you ever fallen into an argument about a doctrine of Christ? I will confess to you right now that I am not a fan of the Lutheran publication Christian News, because many of their articles are based on lording knowledge and opinion over others. Yes, if people are in error we are called to correct them. But what does God tell us to correct them in…anger, wisdom, rude behavior or love? So this discussion that Paul leads us into today is one that must be heard by all Christians because without love we are nothing.
Knowledge is a great thing but without love we are a clanging symbol. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. When you and I come to church to not only worship the Lord but also to study His Word, that of course is a wonderful thing. But love must be present as we study the Word of God or else all we will ever do is study to gain wisdom for ourselves. When love is added, then we come to study God’s Word with purpose. Our purpose is to learn how to take that Word to others. Our purpose is also to learn more about Gods Word so that we have more to knowledge share. Yet when we share that knowledge, Paul guides us in how to go about it.
Here is what we are not to do. Some in the Corinthian congregation were using their “knowledge” to push the envelope and cause offense by eating food offered to idols. Since idols were nothing then why be worried about what has been offered to them or where others might worship them? What is it to the Christian? Yet the weaker Christian who may have thought that eating meat offered to idols meant that they were somehow participating in pagan worship. So in this instance the Christian who had knowledge above the weaker Christian was eating the meat in front of them knowing that it would trouble them. In modern comparison it would be like eating pork in front of those of the Jewish Faith because we no longer live under the law. This would be holding a spirit of arrogance and in doing so would turn a blessing of God (that being knowledge) into a curse of the devil.
Here is how Paul would want us to act. Our knowledge should serve to make us all the more alert and watchful with respect to such things, knowing how easily we can stumble and fall, and not lead us to underestimate our wily foe and our own sinful nature. There we can be, thinking that our faith is fairly solid and that our wisdom in the Word is fairly complete and so we begin to look at God’s Word as a bit repetitive. So at first we tune out when we are at worship because we know the story, we are aware of the account and we have pretty much heard it all. Then, not to much further along in our walk, we limit the amount of time we worship and before we know it, church has become secondary. However, when we remember that knowledge is a gift from God, we would want to continue receiving that gift because anything received from God is Good and Wonderful and Useful. As said earlier, Christian knowledge is a gift from God, not a measuring stick over against our neighbor. So the way Paul would want us to respond fits in to what he says in 1st Cor 8: 13, “Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.” The motivator for that action is of course LOVE! Whereby instead of putting ones knowledge over and above a brother, we do what we can for our brother, even if it means restricting something from ourselves for the sake of our brother.
Yes, Love is what compels us. It is after all what compelled and still compels the Messiah. Think about that for a moment. Jesus has the knowledge of the universe and then some, so he knew all about our wickedness. Could you imagine if Jesus proudly displayed his wisdom against us? He could have called us fools, idiots or children without a spark of brain cells! And by his standards he would be right. He could have given up on his disciples when they doubted or asked the same question twice. In fact whenever anyone had any questions that pertained to who he was, he could have just said what my mother used to tell me when I needed the spelling of a vocabulary word…”LOOK IT UP!” But no, even though Jesus knew that we were sinful from the time our mother conceived us, he still did not use his Knowledge to demean us or tear us down. Instead he applied his knowledge with love.
Christ applied love and it is the knowledge of Christ’s love that helps us to own hope even though every fiber of our being says, “son give it up, your too pathetic of a person to be loved by Jesus.”
Here is an example of how Christ’s love helped me. You know what verse used to always eat me up with dreadful thoughts? It was the one that says, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” I grew up thinking about the possibility of me going before my Father in Heaven thinking I was going to be welcomed into his kingdom only to hear those words. I thought about that because I knew what a sinner I was and how little I did in the name of Christ. I knew that Jesus knew everything about me and that sort of scared me.
I basically went to church for me. I went so I could receive forgiveness for me. I went to learn more about God’s Word for me. This was how I was taught. My church did a lot of things in the name of fellowship. We had two retreats a year! We had a winter activity called THE PENNY SOCIAL that was like a big garage sale meeting up with a small carnival. We built a float for the 4th of July but, we never did any sort of mission work. Nobody ever taught me that church was supposed to prepare me to serve others! It only prepared me to serve me. I got an “A” in fellowship and an “F” in taking what I knew and applying where it matter most, in the life of someone else.
C.S. Lewis did not help my fear much either. After reading the Screw tape Letters, what stuck with me the most was hearing about how a demon would be simply content with a Christian who went to church but never really absorbed or applied any of God’s Word. So when Scripture shows someone saying, “but we cast out demon’s in your name” and I did nothing in Jesus’ name, I knew I was in trouble. Do you know what helped me to overcome that fear? Well it wasn’t what you might think it was. Some might think what helped me overcome the “Depart from me, I never knew you” fear was when I began to do some work in the name of Jesus. But getting busy for Christ was not the first step that took me from a world of knowledge into a world of Grace.
What helped me overcome my fear that I did not really belong to Jesus anymore was when I heard these words, “But the man who loves God is known by God.” First of all I again remind you that Scripture says “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” It was the love of God that built me up. It was his love that called me by name in Holy Baptism. It was his love that guided me to church to learn about Him and His Word. It was his love that kept that Word from vanishing from my lips despite my best intentions to let it. I learned that no matter how great my faith, my knowledge might become, it would mean absolutely nothing without God’s love within me. Knowledge got in my way for the longest time, heck even the demons have knowledge about Jesus but, what really put me on the right track was knowing that “the man who loves God is known by God.” Attach that verse with this one, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except by way of the Holy Spirit”, shows us that the only way we could even desire God and His Word would be because the Lord first loved us and gave us Christ as a ransom for many.
Christ Jesus is who adds love to knowledge. “And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.” Jesus taught me how to live for Him, not just live for knowledge. He taught me that all things revolve around Him, ie, “through whom all things came” and he taught me that my life was supposed to be all about Him..ie “through whom we live.”
Christ’s Love was the key to moving beyond simply filling my mind with new things about the Lord. Love is what saved me from a “knowledge-only-existence” of Jesus. Jesus helped me to love him. To see Him for who he really was, to understand His Holy Passion, His sacrifice for me and thus to trust in his promises that despite my sin and my failings, my name is written in the lambs book of life.
Jesus is the greatest example we can ever have as to what Knowledge combined with Holy Love can do for others. We are the direct result of that combination. Now it is our turn to respond in kind. Let us pray that God continues to find favor with us and provide us with knowledge of his Word and His Will but, let us also pray for His Love to combine with the knowledge that God gives us, so that we can use what we have learned to help others, serve others and encourage others with the Holy Gospel.
Something to think about…
Amen.
