True Knowledge

Fear of the LORD is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. [Proverbs 1.7]

There is so much in this verse to be meditated on and learned...

There is knowledge, and there is true knowledge.

Knowledge is the compounding of information built upon itself.

True knowledge is the compounding of information built upon the basic fear of God.

The fear of God embraces wisdom and discipline. Wisdom and discipline "play well" together because wisdom is the correct discernment of discipline. It is the simple principle found in this statement, "I touched the hot stove once and was burned - I will not touch it again." The "burn" is the discipline, and, the "not touch it again" is the wisdom. All the while God's Word says, "Don't touch the stove."

Herein lies the problem with confusing ideas about pain and loss. Even though the Bible is clear that pain and loss are the results of sin (Deuteronomy 28 - read it, its there and elsewhere), people generally do not see pain and loss that way. Instead of asking, "Why do I feel this pain?" and concluding, "It must be because I touched the hot stove," people, ignorant of God's Word, instead come to ridiculous conclusions about pain and loss with unbiblical statements like, "I got burned, it must be part of God's wonderful plan for my life." This statement reflects knowledge compounded only upon itself, not knowledge built on fearing God Who controls the discipline. 

Knowledge built on wisdom and discipline understands that God is to be feared because He alone controls the discipline! Without this baseline understanding of discipline, there is no hope of true knowledge.

Pain and loss are discipline for sin. Don't despise me for saying it, I am merely quoting the Bible. We all think Pharaoh was an idiot, right? Plague after plague came and he refused to repent. And yet, we do the exact same thing when we interpret pain and loss academically (I include man-made religious doctrines not founded on solid Biblical teaching in this academia).

There is good reason to fear God.

Father, forgive me for interpreting the pain and loss in my life with worldly knowledge. Help me to re-boot my thinking to understand discipline for what Your Word says about it and gain the wisdom from above that is afforded in so doing.