Knowledge That Puffs Up, Love That Builds

Attitudes Shaped by Grace | Day 38

“Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that ‘We all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1, NIV)

Grace and peace to you as this day begins. Most of us can still name two teachers from our school years. One made us feel small for raising a hand, and before long we stopped raising it. The other made every question feel welcome, and we learned more in that room than we ever expected. Both of them may have known their subject equally well. What set them apart was what they did with what they knew.

Paul wrote to a congregation in Corinth that was divided over food sacrificed to idols. Some believers knew the idols were nothing, and they ate with a clear conscience. Others were still troubled. The ones who knew more had begun to look down on the ones who knew less. Paul does not open by telling the knowers they had the facts wrong. He opens with what knowledge does when it stands alone. “Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that ‘We all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1, NIV)

Knowledge That Stands Alone

Knowledge of God and his Word is a gift. The Lord wants his people to know the Scriptures, to hold their teaching carefully, and to grow in understanding all their lives. Paul is not praising ignorance. The trouble he names is knowledge that has stopped serving anyone except the one who holds it. Puffed up knowledge looks large, but most of it is air. Love builds, and what love builds is the person beside us.

The world trains us to treat knowledge as status. The one with the right degree, the right answer, or the quickest reply is the one who earns the respect in the room. That habit comes with us through the church doors. We notice who finds the passage first and who is still turning pages. We correct what did not need correcting. We keep a quiet ranking of who really understands. Our knowledge has at times become a platform to stand on rather than a gift to hand to someone else, and we have cared more about being right than about building up the person who asked.

Paul states the hard truth plainly. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2, NIV) All mysteries and all knowledge, added up without love, come to nothing. Paul does not soften that sentence, and he does not leave us standing in it either.

Right after the key verse, he turns our attention somewhere better. “Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.” (1 Corinthians 8:2-3, NIV) The most important knowing in that sentence is not ours. God knows us. He did not come to know us because we loved him well or learned enough. He knew us in Christ before we could recite a single verse, and our love for him is what grows out of being known.

The Love That Surpasses Knowing

The disciples once brought Jesus a question about rank. “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’” (Matthew 18:1-5, NIV)

Jesus answered a question about greatness with a child. A child is not great for knowing the most. A child knows he needs someone, asks without embarrassment, and receives what he is given with open hands. The change Jesus describes is not something we produce. The Holy Spirit works it through the Word, turning us away from our own importance and back to the Savior. Jesus also says that whoever welcomes such a child in his name welcomes him. The believer with the simplest question in the room is one of his own.

Paul wrote a prayer for the Ephesians that shows where all our knowing is meant to lead. “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19, NIV) Paul does not pray that they would know less. He prays that they would know the one thing too large for knowing to contain. He also prays that they would grasp it together with all the Lord’s holy people. The member who has studied for fifty years and the believer who joined the congregation last spring stand before the same love, and neither one will ever reach its edges.

That is how the Holy Spirit turns knowledge into love. When someone asks a question we settled for ourselves long ago, we can remember that someone once answered it for us. We can share what we know gently, as a gift, and then ask what they think. When we do not know an answer, we can say so without shame and open the Word together. Through his Word, the Spirit makes us the second kind of teacher, the one who makes the question welcome.

Jesus Christ is the reason any of this is possible. He is the eternal Son of God who knows all things, and he did not use what he knew to stand above us. He came down to us, kept the Father’s will perfectly in our place, and laid down his life to pay for the sin of every person who has ever lived, ours among them. Then he rose again, alive forever. In him God knew us and loved us before we knew anything at all. Our place with the Father never depended on how much we understand, and it never will. Jesus Christ is the teacher who answered a question about greatness by placing a child in the middle of the room, and by his grace he has made room for us there too.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your Word and for every truth you have let me learn from it. I confess that I have sometimes used what I know to stand above others, that I have corrected when I should have listened, and that I have cared more about being right than about building someone up. Forgive me for the sake of Jesus Christ, who knew me and loved me before I knew anything at all.

Lord Jesus, your love is wider and deeper than I will ever fully grasp, and I am glad to be known by you. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit, who keeps rooting me in your love through your Word. Make me quick to welcome the simple question, gentle in sharing what I have learned, and honest when I do not know. Bless every Bible class, every pastor and teacher, and every new believer who is still finding their way, and let your people grow in knowledge and in love together. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Thank you for reading this morning. May the Lord bring a good question your way today, and give you a glad heart to answer it. The next devotion looks at who gets the good seat when people walk through the church doors, and what God’s Word says about the way we sort one another.

To God be the glory.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

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