Our biblical knowledge can lead to arrogance without God’s motivating love

<p>Our biblical knowledge can lead to arrogance without God’s motivating love</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

East Ridge SDA Church

Steven Grabiner

The Arrogance of Knowledge

My message this morning, my thoughts I'd like to share.

Title clearly is The Arrogance of Knowledge.

And it comes from this passage, 1 Corinthians, which we just read together.

I was talking with Vivian last night about the sermon.

She gave me tremendous insights, and I thought, well, maybe I'll just read the whole chapter and sit down.

Now, somebody's supposed to say amen at that point in time.

And we are encouraged to read that chapter every day.

It's really what our whole Christian experience is about, which is learning how much God loves us, and then learning how to reflect that love to other people.

And that's really what I wanna share with you this morning, both in a broad way, how we interact with people outside of our sphere, people that may not know Jesus and His love, and how we interact 1 with another.

So again, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13.

I'm not going to read the entire chapter, just say it.

But in verse 1, this very powerful thought that Paul tells us, that if I speak with the tongue of men and of angels, if I have tremendous eloquence, If I was like John Chrysostom, the golden mouth preacher, was really able to communicate the gospel, but don't have love, then what?

Just like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And then Paul goes on in verses 2 and 3, and he tells us even if we do all sorts of things, you know, if I have great faith and I can move mountains, or if I give all that I have to feed the poor, or if I give my very life in martyrdom, but if I don't have love, it profits me nothing.

Which indicates that we could do all those things without what?

Which right away should set us on the edge of our chairs, thinking, really?

Is there somebody that would really give their life or give all their goods for the poor or preach the gospel but not really have love?

But then in verse 4, he says this, love is patient and love is kind, and love does not brag, and this is from the New American Standard, where it says, and is not what?

The King James and the New King James use a different word, says?

And this thought of being puffed up or being arrogant runs throughout the book of 1 Corinthians.

And if you know anything about the church in Corinth, it was a pastor's nightmare.

All sorts of things taking place in that church.

Immorality, people fighting with 1 another, horrendous congregation.

And yet, as we read carefully 1 Corinthians, they were pretty proud.

And if you're missing love, you can become proud about lots of different things.

And so, as I said, I want to address this in relation to how we relate to other people and how we relate to 1 another.

I want to tell you about a new friend that I met a couple of weeks ago last week.

His name is not really John, but I'm going to call him John just for privacy's sake.

John grew up in a minority family, not anywhere in this part of the world, lower income and gay sexual orientation as he was growing up.

And all 3 of these combined to give John a very difficult life growing up.

And schools that he went to were majority Caucasian, majority white, and so how did he fit into this society?

It was a lot of issues that he was facing.

And as he grew up, a number of interactions that came into his life helped him become more comfortable with not feeling like he needed to fit in, recognizing his ethnicity and becoming proud of it and not really worrying about his economic status.

But something that happened as we were talking with 1 another, he found out I was a Seventh-day Adventist, and so he asked me this question, what do Adventists believe?

Have you ever had anyone ask you that question?

So I used to answer this question much easier than I do now.

So if somebody were to ask you, what do Adventists believe, what would you say?

John and I are walking, we're going to lunch together.

I just met him, he's telling me his whole story, and then he says, so what do Adventists believe?

Well, Jesus loves you and wants to thank you.

Oh, Jesus loves you and wants, I wish you had been with me.

You know, and actually then he asked, what do you believe in, what's different from other Christians?

And I was like, well, why, Oh, he's different.

So, but I began talking about that we really try to follow the Bible carefully where it reveals Jesus' love.

And that every person is created in the image of God.

And because of that, everybody has value in God's sight.

And then I started sharing about some of our early Adventist founders, like Joseph Bates in the 1800s, and how they fought against slavery, and they were very interested in making a difference in society.

And he goes, well, all I know about you guys is that you're really interested in health.

And I said, well, yes, we are interested in health, but that's because we believe in the whole person, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

And we started sharing about things like that.

And then he started sharing about his experience with me, how in his journey he met a group of Quakers, and he decided to start worshiping with the Quakers.

And he found that the Quakers were very helpful for him.

I don't know if you know anything about Quaker worship service.

You sit in a circle and you don't say anything.

I'm sure there's more to it than that, but that's my understanding.

And then afterwards, there's fellowship, but it's being quiet in God's presence.

But he enjoyed that, but the thing that really made the difference for him is this.

He said that every Quaker he met were so loving and so accepting.

That's what was communicated to him, That he had value created in the image of God.

And so of course the question for us is, so if John came to church, How would we relate to him?

And we have this kind of a really awkward thing as Seventh-day Adventists, and those of you that might not be a Seventh-day Adventist, you're welcome a little brief in-house conversation, but Seventh-day Adventists have a lot of information about health, right?

Tremendous information that's very beneficial to people, and we can see that in lots of different ways, or education, and Bible understanding.

There's a lot of good Bible truth that we understand, but all of that is knowledge.

Now, if you think I'm making that up, turn back with me to chapter 8 in the book of 1 Corinthians.

Chapter 8 is a very long section in which Paul deals with idols, and we're not gonna do that this morning.

Just want to kind of pull out 1 thought that Paul says here.

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, We know that we all have knowledge.

Puffs up, as the King James says, in the New King James.

Or as the New American Standard says, knowledge makes arrogant.

And so here's our tension, here's our danger, is to have knowledge, but not have love.

And when We have a lot of knowledge, unfortunately, well, scripture tells us here at least, that it has the tendency to make us arrogant.

And then if we, of course, we know everything, we're not very curious because we know everything.

Why be curious if you know everything, right?

And so we have this tension, and it's a real tension.

How do you keep curiosity about scriptures when you're studying it if You feel like you know it all.

How do you be curious about another person's life and story if you think you have all knowledge?

Knowledge makes us arrogant, but love edifies.

Some of you are sitting there thinking, yeah, just hold on a second, education is important, and it's true, I agree, I'm not saying education's not important.

But education without love can be dangerous.

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The Arrogance of Knowledge

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