The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 279

Ver. 1.-K71owledqe and love. There is a great difference between being" puffed up" and being" built up." The one implies something pretentious and plausible, but hollow and unreal. It means show without substance, size without solidity, inflation withou\ real enlargement. The other implies the gradual accumulation of substantial materials, on a firm basis, to some useful and enduring result. Now, the apostle would have the Corint.bian Christians determine the question of personal duty concerning attendance at feasts in honour of idols, or eating of meat offered in sacrifice, on far other ground than any supposed sagacity of their own. All, no <loubt, had" knowledge." But there is a higher criterion of judgrnent than this. Love is a better guide in such matters than knowledge. In all these things let it be that delicate regard for the feelings and interests of others which love implies, rather than any :ibstrnct ideas about their own liberty, that determines their conduct. Hence the broad principle," Knowledge puffeth up, love edifieth." Uonsider- 1. THE KKOWLEDGE THAT PUFFETH UP. The case contemplated is one in which the purely intellectual element in the determination of moral questions is divorced from right feeling. It is a knowledge ideal and speculative, not vital and spiritual. The knowledge of the theologian, the logician, the casuist; not that of the man whose reason and conscience and heart are alike alive unto God. The characteristic of this knowledge is that it makes men vain, conceited, self-asserting, "thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think." A true knowledge of the things of God has no such tendency as this. "lf a man thinketh that he kuoweth anything," etc. (ver. 2). Real knowledcre in the spiritual sphere is beyond the reach of one who is destitute of humility and Jove. Even in the realm of purely secular science, true knowledge does not make men vain. The lives of such men as Newton, Herschel, Faraday, etc., illustrate the truth of this. They were men of lowly, childlike spirit. They stood reverently, as with bared head and unsandalled feet, before the infinite mystery of the unive~se. It is the novice, the mere tyro in learning, the mnn of shallow thougct and narrow view, who is proud of his attainments, dogmatic and self-asserting. How much more will it be so in matters purely spiritual, belonging to a region into which our science cannot climb! Take Sr. Paul himself as an example. While he moved within the narrow circle of Jewish traditio11 and prejudice, he was probnbly the very type of personal vanity. His Pharisnic pride was not only that of logal blamelessness, but of theological culture. Had he not sat at the feet of Gamaliel? Who could teach Lim what he did not know? It is a porlrait of himself that he paints in those half- sarcastic words: "If thou bearest the name of a Jew, and restcst upon the Law," etc. (Ilom. ii. 17-20). But when the light from hea\·en shone upon him, how was the loftiness of his pride laid low I He "became a fool that he might be wise." Moreover, thi~ mere theoretic knowledge is as profitless in its effect on others as it is to one's self. It becomes disputatious, "gen<lering strifes about words," etc. '!'here is no "edifying,. en. vu1. 1-13.J THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 28-1