Tongue Twister Extraordinaire - Part 3

Do you ever wonder why the Bible refers to some people in the most depreciating way?   For example in Proverbs 1:22 (ESV):

“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

Fools, in the Bible, are not intellectually challenged.  Fools are not stupid.  In almost hyperbolic language, the Bible equates "fools" with those who possess knowledge, but don't possess knowledge.  It's just like Paul in this tongue-twisting text in 1 Corinthians, chapter 8.  It is here that Paul unravels that floppy muscle in the cavity of our mouths and says this: The measure of your knowledge is in direct proportion to the expression of your knowledge. In fact those who don't express their knowledge in the way that God directs are indicted with these words: "[They are] people who think they know so much don’t know anything at all." (1 Corinthians 8:2, CEV).  So the question that the previous post left was this: "What will turn presumed knowledge into precise knowledge?"  The answer is sandwiched in the text.  Note:

" Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up." (1 Corinthians 8:1, ESV)

and

"But if anyone loves God, he is known by God." (1 Corinthians 8:3, ESV)

The first half of the sandwich is this: Knowledge (to be knowledge in reality and in precision) must be expressed in love.  This is well-known to us.  I remind you of 1 Corinthians 13:2.  The second half of the sandwich takes more thought and explanation.  Here is the chain of thought:

To be known by God is His foreknowledge or election (Romans 8:29; etc.)  -->
To be chosen by God is be humbled by one's inability and inadequacy -->
Therefore: To be known by means all life is by grace therefore ". . . What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" (1 Corinthians 4:7, ESV)

So here's the punchline:  For knowledge to be precise it must be birthed in humility and expressed in love.  Do I know anything?  The measure of my knowledge is in direct proportion to the manner it is expressed.

Tongue Twister Extraordinaire - Part 2

1Corinthians 8:1-3 is a real tongue twister.  Yet when it becomes deciphered, it becomes stunning. 

"Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies." (1 Corinthians 8:1, NASB95) . The ESV puts quotation marks around the phrase "all of us possess this knowledge."  What the Corinthians "know" is recorded in verse 4.  "To paraphrase this: 'We both know that you consider yourself to be thoroughly informed about this matter.'” (KJV Bible Commentary, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1994). 2302.)  Paul is employing a bit of sarcasm here.    The correction that Paul is making is that behind their knowledge was an unloving attitude.

Their knowledge is true.  There is nothing to an idol. Christians know that.  There is only one God.  But this knowledge had caused them to act in a very unloving way.  They were flaunting their freedom to eat food offered to idols and in doing so they were bringing harm to others (see verse 7f).

So Paul then goes on to say, "If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know;" (1 Corinthians 8:2, NASB95).  Paul makes this amazing statement.  He says that knowledge isn't just a cognitive process. You can know and not know at the same time.  You can know something rightly.  You can know something with doctrinal precision.  But if your knowledge is not expressed lovingly, you do not know anything. This is an amazing truth that Paul is expounding.  He is virtually saying that knowledge that does not go further than itself by seeking the well-being, the good, the benefit of others is not knowledge.  "With the essential ingredient of love, knowledge is tempered and made the right kind of discerning and compassionate knowledge . . .." (Expositor's Bible Commentary)

In the next post we will wrap this up by asking, "What will turn presumed knowledge into precise knowledge?"

Tongue Twister Extraordinaire - Part 1

Many of us grew up memorizing tongue twisters.  "How much wood could a woodchuck, chuck," for example.  Or how about the pepper picking Peter?  We shouldn't forget about that dear lass that had to sell seashells!   I thought of a tongue twister -- a Divine tongue twister as I read Paul's letter to the Corinthians.  In the eight chapter of that first epistle he gives us a mouthful.  Read this:

" Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him." (1 Corinthians 8:1-3, NASB95)

Did you get that?  "If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know!"   There's a lot here about knowledge, knowing, being known, not knowing, etc.   There's also somethings here that will revolutionize our understanding of knowledge.   Over the next few posts I hope to unravel the tongue twister. 

Here's one a kid wrote: "A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk."