Knowledge Needs Love
“Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?”
(1 Kings 3:9)
What do I mean when I talk about knowledge? By knowledge I mean an acquisition of biblical facts, principles, and doctrines. When I write about gaining knowledge, I have in mind an understanding of the great themes and principles of Scripture so that they fit together into a system of thought that assists us in accurately interpreting the whole of Scripture. Knowledge doesn’t get emotionally involved. Knowledge alone lacks action. It lacks feelings. Knowledge has to do with the gaining, the gathering, and the relating of facts. And all of this can remain theoretical … if you let it.
Turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 13. Let me show you a place where knowledge appears in this light. Interestingly, it occurs in a chapter on love.
If I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and know all the mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1–2 NASB)
You remember those words. They begin the most wonderful treatise on love in all of literature. They cannot be improved upon. The reference to “knowledge” in these verses is a factual, doctrinal, theological, biblical kind of knowledge. But don’t miss the emphasis: “Let there be love with knowledge!” Without love, all those facts leave us empty. “I am nothing.”
Turn to 2 Corinthians. Same group of first-century Corinthians. Written a little bit later by the same writer, Paul.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge [there’s our word] of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4–5 NASB 1995)
The writer is referring to a knowledge of God, a knowledge about God, a knowledge of His Holy Word, which naturally includes a knowledge of His love. Paul’s point is well taken—such knowledge, even grounded in love, is often the target of our enemy’s attack.
