Years ago, when I was a teenager my mother sent me to the grocery store to purchase some self-rising flour so she could make some of her family-famous biscuits. I wasn’t paying enough attention to the labels and ended up buying plain flour instead of self-rising flour. My mother didn’t catch my error and ended up using plain flour. Needless to say, her biscuits turned out flat instead of puffy.
I thought about that experience recently when I went to the grocery store to purchase some self-rising flour for Deidra to use to make her own family-famous biscuits. This time, however, it also caused me to think of something the apostle Paul wrote in I Corinthians 8:1 (KJV) - “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity (love) edifieth.” The Amplified Version renders this passage: “Knowledge causes people to be puffed up—to bear themselves loftily and be proud; but love and affection and goodwill and benevolence, edifies and builds up and encourages one to grow to his full stature.”
Have you ever met a “puffed up” Christian? You know, the one who acts like he or she has reached a level of biblical knowledge and understanding that places them above most everyone else in the church? They basically have the view that if everyone would just listen to them, or interpret every Bible passage exactly like them, then they could lead the church to where it needs to be. It’s a spiritual arrogance that is often so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
Chances are, you’ve met plenty puffed up self-rising religious people like this in your lifetime, and you have discovered that they are all too willing and proud to tell you where you’re wrong, and where they’re right on just about any biblical subject you want to discuss with them. They feel sorry for the rest of us ignorant people because even though we have eyes, we just can’t see things as clearly as them.
Many of them feel that because they have read the 10 latest religious best-sellers, have gone to several religious lectureships and workshops, have done a few word studies by dabbling in the Greek and Hebrew, have been involved in some Starbucks coffee shop Bible conversations, and have read the Bible through in a year, that they have knowledge and understanding and discerning abilities that the average Christian just doesn’t have. They feel informed, enlightened, and superior to the “average Christian.” However, most of the time it’s just an illusion.
Don’t get me wrong, reading the 10 best-sellers, going to Bible lectureships and workshops, doing word studies, and being in Bible study groups and conversations are all wonderful things that we all should probably do more of. However, if by doing these things it causes you to act “puffed up,” then you’ve missed the point and purpose of such things. A true knowledge of the scriptures and their application will cause a person to be humble instead of puffed up.
I have seen people like this try to force their religious agendas on the church. They often give ultimatums—“change to my way of thinking or I’m leaving.” In their mind, they are simply trying to rescue the church from its ignorance. They arrogantly assume that there is no way they could be wrong and that most everyone else simply does not have enough understanding, discipline, or intelligence to see things the way they should—the right way—their way. They very often end up tearing people down instead of building them up, and they turn up their noses when a fellow Christian says something for which they do not agree.
The text says, “Knowledge puffeth up, but love builds up.” Verses 2 and 3 read, “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.” Interesting! In other words, it doesn’t matter how much knowledge you have if it is not seasoned with the love of God. We should never use our knowledge to intimidate or push people down or away, only to edify or lift people up.
Later in chapter 13, Paul would go on to say: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 have not love, I am nothing.”
Most all of us need to study our Bible more to attain more knowledge, and most of us are probably due a checkup from the neck up, but it’s a humble and contrite heart that pleases God the most, and earns one the right and the permission to tell anybody about anything that has to do with God and his precious word
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