If I have knowledge but have not love...
Paul just continues to throw down in his letter to the Corinthian church, and he keeps amazing me. This whole passage has really resounded with me as I've gone over it more and more, and as a ministry leader, brother, and friend, it rings true every single day.
The Bible does not deny that we should be ever growing in our studies of the knowledge of the Gospel truth. Yet as Paul says "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." So many times our abundance of knowledge can make us feel more important than we truly are and make us seem too intense, intelligent, or too removed from people for them to get close to us. Yet when approached with love (the sacrificial love action that Jesus showed on the cross and that we must also use from within us to help people reach their sole satisfying glory in God), we can use this knowledge in grace to help others grow too.
Paul continues this show us that the knowledge brought on my our speech and actions can actually do young believers more harm than good if we aren't conscious about them. For example, as a 21 year old college student, I know that the Bible does not condemn drinking alcohol (IN MODERATION without overdoing it), but as I am constantly surrounded by people not of age, I do not drink at all, for concern that it may give them the wrong idea that Christian faith condones drinking period. It would not be good at all.
This passage is so important for those of us guiding younger believers and is something that we ALWAYS need to be conscious of and intentional about in our personal walks in truth.
Created about 2 years ago
