Lately I have been pondering Philippians 1:9:
"And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;".
It's difficult for me to think of love within the context of knowledge and judgement, (which to me means understanding and discernment...) but it makes such balanced sense. It's very easy to separate the intellect from the heart and create robotic, logic-only-based creatures who ignore intuition and "the weightier matters of the law" like love. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 warns of the knowledge that "puffs people up" and continues to exhort us to be humble.
"... Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.2 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.3 But if any man love God, the same is known of him."
Conversely, the other extreme of trusting only in feelings and what we perceive is love without the balance of knowledge and judgment leads to people doing wrong things for what they think are right reasons, "casting their pearls before swine" so to speak.
Blair Adams in the book Building Christian Character writes of this balance: "... each part of our being must fulfill its highest potential of oneness in proper God-ordained relationships with everything around us given to us by God; for we know that nature abhors a vacuum, and whatever in our lives remains unfulfilled through these divine and living patterns of oneness, then the flesh, the world or the devil will move to fill (Luke 11:23-26). If we do not find the meaning for our minds or emotions in the purpose of God, we will look for it in the world and its zeitgeist. So we cannot really hope to guard ourselves in the negative sense without also fulfilling ourselves in the positive sense." (Bold emphasis mine.)
God is balanced. He encourages moderation in all things; this one is a refreshing place for me to strive for improvement. I fear there are not enough good examples of "love abounding in knowledge and judgement."
"And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;".
It's difficult for me to think of love within the context of knowledge and judgement, (which to me means understanding and discernment...) but it makes such balanced sense. It's very easy to separate the intellect from the heart and create robotic, logic-only-based creatures who ignore intuition and "the weightier matters of the law" like love. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 warns of the knowledge that "puffs people up" and continues to exhort us to be humble.
"... Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.2 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.3 But if any man love God, the same is known of him."
Conversely, the other extreme of trusting only in feelings and what we perceive is love without the balance of knowledge and judgment leads to people doing wrong things for what they think are right reasons, "casting their pearls before swine" so to speak.
Blair Adams in the book Building Christian Character writes of this balance: "... each part of our being must fulfill its highest potential of oneness in proper God-ordained relationships with everything around us given to us by God; for we know that nature abhors a vacuum, and whatever in our lives remains unfulfilled through these divine and living patterns of oneness, then the flesh, the world or the devil will move to fill (Luke 11:23-26). If we do not find the meaning for our minds or emotions in the purpose of God, we will look for it in the world and its zeitgeist. So we cannot really hope to guard ourselves in the negative sense without also fulfilling ourselves in the positive sense." (Bold emphasis mine.)
God is balanced. He encourages moderation in all things; this one is a refreshing place for me to strive for improvement. I fear there are not enough good examples of "love abounding in knowledge and judgement."
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