An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
Fire does not burn without fuel; smoke does not rise without fire. Every result has a prerequisite and a cause, leading back to Him and His decree, the ultimate cause. Human wisdom, ingenuity, and achievement has as one of its central materials the knowledge He has given us. Knowing this, we can understand this proverb’s description of how intelligence and wisdom leads its possessors to behave: they seek knowledge in order to have the material to bear fruit.
Children, of all of us, have the least knowledge and the least opportunity for knowledge. Now, trying to re-enact J.S. Mills’s biography is several steps too far, but education definitely includes a strong double layer of teaching knowledge and teaching the search for knowledge. Children learn about the world, which gives them the material to live in it, and children learn to learn about the world, which gives them the skill to gather more material.
As we grow up, we assemble ever greater piles of knowledge. Some of it, by the law of probabilities, is wrong. Some is incomplete, visibly or invisibly. Much of it, by God’s grace, is true. This knowledge develops into a worldview, a more or less coherent (ideally, more coherent, provided it is coherence in truth) understanding of how each truth relates to the rest, webs and chains of knowledge attaching to us and our loved ones and the various parts of our lives, from vocation to recreation to hobby to worship.
As we grow, however, we have a choice to make. We can choose to cultivate our desire to learn more about His creation and about His image and about Him, or we can let it rot, can let it turn in untoward directions, can quash it. This proverb instructs us that it is the course of wisdom to seek knowledge, but ‘seeking knowledge’ is worse than useless if we seek foolishly or refuse to apply what we find.
Discernment is the key word here. When I seek out knowledge, I must not only find brute information. I must assess how this information lines up with what I already know. I must consider what testifies to its truth and what argues against it. Simply finding that it contradicts my previous beliefs isn’t enough to dismiss it; I must find that my previous belief still has a better evidentiary basis than its challenger. This evidence comes in two types: other facts, relied on in proportion to the evidence I have to support them, and authority, relied upon in proportion to the trustworthiness, knowledgeability, and clarity of the authority.
This sounds like a lot, and sometimes it is. If I’m analyzed an important fact- something that decides an irreversible life-choice, my understanding of some part of God, a possibility in my relationship with my family- I will go through this process rather exhaustively. On the other hand, if the fact in question is trivial or peripheral, I need weigh it only briefly; I may even hold it in suspension, remembering two incompatible facts until such time as one becomes clearly true, and then remembering the false one as false (for knowledge of falsity is true knowledge). Very often, too, we have intermediate questions. My belief in a political candidate’s sincerity, for instance, is of sufficient importance to spend some time analyzing, if he’s running for office in my area, but not so important that I must reach perfect certainty over it. Preponderance of the evidence suffices, where in a question pertaining to my immortal soul, I would require as complete certainty as I could acquire.
Once I have the knowledge and once I have verified it, however, wisdom demands a final step: using it. I must integrate the knowledge into my worldview and then live according to the truth given to me (perpetually in need of updating and correction as it is on this earth, given my own propensity to love lies (Rom. 1:18-21)). Knowledge known but never followed is wasted. It is even a detriment to the one who knows, for “from him to whom [He] entrusted much, [He] will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).
This duty lays most heavily upon us when it comes to the most crucial knowledge we can have: knowledge of God and our relation to Him. James 2:19 warns us that, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” Knowledge, once we know it, will come out in our lives. If we do not apply it properly, we will in our neglect apply it improperly. When a parent knows how to feed his child and refuses, he applies his knowledge: he applies it in refusing to go through with his duty (Rom. 5:13-14, 7:7). When we know God and refuse to honor Him as God, we damn ourselves; that damnation is the fruit of the knowledge we attain. Like the demons, because we would not apply the knowledge to honor Him, it bears fruit in shuddering and death.
Let us rather bear life, both in righteousness upon this earth and in faith towards Him which brings true righteousness eternal.
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
