1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. – 1 Corinthians 8:1-3

One of the great enemies of loving the Lord with all our minds is our pride. The apostle Paul shows us in 1 Corinthians 8 that this is the issue taking place in Corinth. Some of the Corinthian believers who knew that idols were fake and that food sacrificed to these idols was nothing were allowing their knowledge to puff them up with pride and this pride was destroying love, therefore Paul says, “This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up.” In his book Think, John Piper explains why knowledge leads to pride: 

Knowledge is susceptible to pride because it is the result of getting, not giving. Knowledge is a possession. It is something we have attained. So we are prone to boast about it. Love, on the other hand, is the act of giving, not getting.

According to John Piper, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians gives two remedies for pride. First, Paul says, “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Cor 8:2). In other words, Paul is saying that you do not truly know something if that knowledge does not lead to loving God and loving others more. The Corinthians in their pride think that they know, but the truth is they do not really know as God wants them to know. Paul is trying to teach the Corinthians that all knowledge that God gives us should lead to loving God and loving others more. 

So, first we need to ask ourselves: Is the attainment of my knowledge leading me to loving God and loving others more? If not, then we don’t know as God wants us to know. 

Next Paul gives the second remedy for pride: “If anyone loves God, he is known by God” (1 Cor 8:3). In other words, the very reason we love God is because God knew us and loved us in the first place. Paul is showing the prideful Corinthians that all the good things they have are a result of God’s act of grace and love. They didn’t earn God’s love. They didn’t earn their knowledge. It was God who gave it to them. Pride quickly begins to evaporate in our lives when we have this revelation that all that we have that is good has been undeservedly given to us by God simply because of his love, goodness and grace.

Is your knowledge puffing you up with pride? Or is it fostering a greater love for God and for the people around you? 

As you finish this fast, ask the Lord to give you the humility to love God with all your mind to love the people around you as Jesus has called you to do.

Lord, everything I have that is good is a gift from you! Thank you for the knowledge you have given me so that I can love you more and love others around me. Lord, I bring to the cross today all my prideful thoughts that inflate my ego because I believe I have attained it. Help me to take the knowledge you have given me so that I can love you more and love the people around me sacrificially just as you did Jesus. In Jesus’ Name, amen!