The Complicated Relationship between Love and Knowledge

One of the most convicting sayings of a favorite bishop of mine was a quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt, #26.

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

I need this reminder, because if I’m honest with myself, I might be a knowledge addict. I read. I study. I listen. I learn. I feel better about myself when I’m accumulating knowledge. I admire knowledgeable people. There’s nothing wrong with seeking or having knowledge. And there’s nothing wrong with sharing knowledge, unless it’s with a know-it-all spirit. But most people just want to know that we care about them. Love is powerful.

The Apostle Paul defended love as the greatest of virtues when he wrote:

‘If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.’  [New Living Translation, 1 Cor. 13:1-2]

Love trumps knowledge, except it gets more complicated.

Paul returns to the relationship between love and knowledge in his letter to the church in Ephesus. When it comes to the love of God, Paul challenges us to try to understand it, to increase our knowledge about it.

“Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all fullness of life and power that comes from God.” [Eph. 3:17-19]

I want to understand the width and length and height and depth of His love for me. Yet I can only barely begin to fathom it.

Building knowledge of His great love is a little like standing on a beach gazing into the ocean stretching over the horizon. It goes further than I can see. It goes deeper than I can dive. The waves rise higher than I can ride. No wonder the children’s Sunday School song says “I have love like an ocean in my soul.”

It’s too much. We can’t comprehend it. But we can die trying!