1 Corinthians 8:2 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Corinthians 8:2

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Pride says, ‘I think I know things. I think I am instructed in doctrine, I think I understand this and understand that, so there is something a bit special about me.’ Think of this, says the apostle, ‘You don't know anything yet.’ We could say that realism capsizes pride. Perhaps you have never been fully tested by the Lord, never yet experienced trials which refine: tried as silver is tried, not just to test whether it is silver, but to refine it to greater purity. This is part of the Christian life. I walk around; I know so much. I am proud of knowing more than some of my brothers and sisters. I am getting proud and inflated. Yes, but at any time, I am going to have a test, a trial, and I will be at my wit’s end and I will be cast down, and how can this problem or this onslaught be resolved? I may almost completely fail the Lord, and even almost fall from the faith. Then I appeal to him, and in a remarkable way he lifts me up, and shows me my need, and comes to my aid, and sees me through. I praise him, and marvel at his goodness and his power and wisdom. That is real learning, the apostle hints, not the head knowledge that was puffing me up. It is good to have knowledge; we don't downgrade it at all, but it is the effect of bringing trouble with it. It is important to have experience of God too. ‘If any man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet’, says the apostle to the relatively young Christians at Corinth. You have got some experiences to come, some searching to come, some trials to come, to prove the Lord in, and to see him at work in great power in your life. Perhaps, despite all your knowledge, you have not yet searched some of the rarer doctrines of the Bible. Perhaps you never had what the Puritans used to regard as great spiritual experiences, elevated spiritual experiences. You are proud of knowledge but you have a long way to go yet. Perhaps you have only studied a few books of the Bible yourself. Most of your Bible you have yet to search, yet to understand. You don't know anything yet; don't be proud of the bit of knowledge you now have. Everything that we can know is not a fraction of what we will know when we step into eternity. What we will be shown, what we will be taught! We will be learning forever, but a vast amount we shall learn in the twinkling of an eye, as we enter into the presence of the Lord. If we are capable of thinking along these lines, when we enter glory we shall look and think: ‘Oh to think, I could be proud of the little I knew on earth.’ We know so little, and yet sometimes we would argue with an apostle if one were to come to earth. So the apostle gives us some realism, and he seeks to deflates us. And then there is this little sting in the tail, ‘as ye ought to know.’

Application

Am I getting proud because of knowledge? Yes, but I ought to know much more than I do. Let me look back across my life. How many times I have allowed myself to be so easily distracted from learning about my Lord: his being, his attributes, his wonderful ways, and his plans for the future? How many times have I been distracted from learning by foolish things, by that television, by silly, shallow, pointless things? It would be embarrassing to count up the hours. I don't know half as much as I ought to know, considering the debt I owe the Lord, and how much love he has shown me, and how much power he has demonstrated in my life. The things I ought to have learned and read and studied! The psalmist says, ‘So foolish was I, and ignorant.’ Godly men have uttered such sentiments, and yet here are we strutting around so proudly. Do you know the doctrines? How many of us have never read a good sound book on doctrine? Do you know the apologetic arguments, not the very elaborate ones, but sufficient to help people who are in doubt because of all the atheistic reasoning they hear? Do you know some biblical apologetic arguments, which will open minds and cause people to question what they believe? Do you know evangelistic arguments? How to press and persuade and encourage and appeal to people to come to the Lord and to find him? Do you know any good evangelistic arguments for your brother or sister, or your mother, father, husband, wife: for anyone who is unsaved? Do you know the promises of God? Not just one or two. Do you collect them? Do you have them at your disposal there in the back of the Bible, in your heart: promises of God for every situation to lift you up and strengthen and encourage you? Do you have the comforts of the Lord at your fingertips? Do you know your eschatology, wonderful truths about the last things? Do you know different Scriptures that are suited to different states of mind that we find ourselves in? Do you know the principles of conduct? There is so much to know. What am I doing getting proud of the little I do know.

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1 Corinthians 8:2 Commentary and Bible Study