Knowledge Is Not Wisdom

REFERENCE: Acts 21:10-12 Several days later a man named Agabus, who also had the gift of prophecy, arrived from Judea. 11 He came over, took Pauls belt, and bound his own feet and hands with it. Then he said, "The Holy Spirit declares, "˜So shall the owner of this belt be bound by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and turned over to the Gentiles." 12 When we heard this, we and the local believers all begged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.

Observation: It is interesting to note here that although Agabus had a real gift of prophecy (and subsequent events certainly bore that out) he did not have the right interpretation of that prophecy. He knew what was going to happen to Paul, he was wrong about what Paul needed to do about that. It is our tendency to believe that because someone has insight on the future that they will know how we ought to act in the context of that insight. The truth is that God has given some a gift of prophecy or word of knowledge; an understanding of future events. Others have a gift of wisdom or exhortation that may help us to know how to act in that future. Both of these gifts may not be, and often are not, possessed by the same person.

We should be careful, then, taking spiritual counsel from someone who legitimizes what they say by the fact that they have insight into our future. They may know what will happen but may not know what we ought to do about it.

If we have insight, we also need to have the humility to consider that God may use someone else to give an interpretation of how a person ought to use that insight.

Application/Confession: I am impressed when someone seems to have a true prophetic insight into my life. It would be easy for me to assume that whatever they have to say about what I ought to do must be right as well. I need to be careful to let God show me, perhaps through other, perhaps directly by the Spirit, what I need to do with what I have been shown.

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for prophetic insight. Teach me to accept it with the wisdom that Paul showed. May I never be dissuaded from doing what you call me to do, going where you call me to go, no matter how scary it seems.