Jul 28, 2022
Do you ever think about the dark side of knowledge?
Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One podcast. Today, I wanna read a passage of scripture. 1st Corinthians 8:1. "Now concerning food offered to idols. We know that all of us possess knowledge, this knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." That's from the English Standard Version.
I may talk about 1st Corinthians 8 for a few days here. The food offered to idols is not a big problem in our world today, and so oftentimes we might get tempted to pass over passages like this quickly, but I think this whole chapter makes some telling illustrations for our world. The first one today is a particular problem for me, and Paul jumps into it right here. "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." Knowledge inflates. Often, I feel like I know things. I like to think of myself as being a pretty smart guy, and this verse is a reminder. I love the way that the Lord instructed the apostle Paul to put this in - that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
I don't think knowledge brings me closer to other people. Love brings me closer to other people. Love builds others up. Me knowing things separates me from them. I'm so tempted to be arrogant and it doesn't take much for me, I struggle with that often. I think often when we know things it's easy for us to consider ourselves better than others or different than others. Many highly educated people send that message to the people around them, and I felt that way around others. I often feel that way when I feel like somebody else knows more than I know.
This whole idea about "knowledge puffing up, but love building up" is important for us as believers because we know the Holy Spirit and we know about the Bible and we understand these things, but we aren't supposed to use that knowledge to separate ourselves from others. Instead, that knowledge should challenge us. We wanna lay that knowledge down so that we're available to love others and build them up.
This conversation about food offered to idols I believe is a lifestyle issue, and as we go into some of these other verses in this chapter, we'll talk about that a little bit more, but today let's remember that we all possess knowledge, but the use of knowledge tends to puff us up instead of building up others. And our calling I believe is to build up others, that's what love does.
God is a lover. He loved us first. He loved us even when we didn't deserve it, And when we love others, we build them up. Today, I want to challenge myself and you, if it applies, let's not focus on what we know. Let's instead focus on how we can build others up. We can be active by thinking about and loving others in our workplace.
Take an extra few minutes and ask the question "tell me more," or "what else?" How can I be a blessing to the people around me when we punch in and we say, here I am to God, let's ask Him to use us today in the lives of the people that we work with and the people that we interact with. I don't want my knowledge of God or my knowledge of the scripture to separate me from people. Instead, I want the spirit of love and the salvation that I've been given, and my response to that salvation is to be that I build other people up. So join us today. Let's find ways to love those around us and build them up.
Thanks for being a Marketplace Minister, and thanks for considering how you might be one who lives their faith in the workplace. We have formed a community of people who are trying to do that on a regular basis, and that community is online at https://community.Followerofone.org. Why not go over there and check it out?
Thanks very much.