October 19

Oct 19 - Today from Proverbs 19 we look at verse 2
"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, or to be hasty and miss the way."

This proverb is not a cautionary statement about the evil of zeal. It is a statement about balance. I believe that if one transposed the nouns in the first thought, it would also be a correct admonition; "It is not good to have knowledge without zeal." The Hebrew word for which the translators decided to use the term 'zeal' is a form of the word which can also be translated 'soul' (KJV). But in addition to just being a breathing creature, it also suggests appetite and desire. Thus the NIV has made a good choice in using the word zeal. To have a zeal for the Lord means one hungers to know and to be near Him. It alludes to a desire for intimacy with Him. There are those who seek knowledge of the Lord without ever having worked on having a zeal for the Lord.
But, this proverb speaks of zeal without knowledge. Regarding the Lord, it is most common among new believers, and is the reason why proper mentoring and discipleship are so terribly important for new believers. I know . . . I was there. When I first discovered that the gospel was real, and that Jesus really died for me and that He had a whole new way of thinking and living for me, I had a tremendous zeal for the Lord. I came to this discovery quite on my own and had no spiritual mentor. I began to 'devour' the Bible and came up with as many questions as I did answers. The questions I accumulated were mostly seated in the mysteries of the faith, and some in the traditions of the faith I was raised in. When I took my questions to the Pastor of the church that we were attending at the time, he basically told me not to be focusing in those areas, they just brought confusion and division in the church. But, it was in the Bible and I had a zeal for answers. So, I turned to the media preachers and evangelists who had all sorts of answers (it was in the late 1970s at the time). They fueled my zeal but seldom deepened my knowledge. (My definition of knowledge here is correct information.) I quickly got caught up in the hyper-faith teachings ("name it and claim it"), that came to prominence in the 70s and 80s. Strong emotional impulses became the statement "The Lord told me". If one could not hear the Lord, then one was not zealous enough. One of the hallmarks of the followers of this 'neo-charismatic' movement was that statement; "The Lord spoke to me and said. . ."
Then in 1986 the Lord in His wisdom brought me into contact with the persecuted church in Eastern Europe. All of that 'name it claim it' theology fell apart in the face of the people I met who were walking in true faith and who suffered great loss of the material things of this world for it. Yet they were richer in Christ then I had ever experienced. This was the door God chose for me to place me into ‘school’ and get the knowledge to balance my zeal. I rediscovered that God primarily speaks by His Spirit through His Word. Our emotions can fool us. His Word is unshakable. I learned to let the Word interpret itself. Clever men can interpret the Word to make it say what they want it to say. Truth is the sum of God's Word, not just a slice of it. Zealous people who follow the clever teachings of men will soon lose their way. If their zeal is truly for the Lord and not just for what they can get from the Lord, the Lord can correct them - if they will be open to His correction. I once again became a student of the Word. I wanted to have the heart of the Berean believers who accepted nothing at face value - even from the great apostle Paul. "For the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." -Acts 17:11
While serving as the director of the USA office of Dorcas Aid International (an international Christian relief and development organization), I was often privileged to visit our projects in the field and attend our international conferences. Because Dorcas is interdenominational, we had volunteers serving from every flavor of Christendom. I can tell you without hesitation that the most troublesome of these volunteers were those from the neo-charismatic movement. Because they had a 'direct line' to the Holy Spirit, they believed they could override the authority of the organization. They would come to a project full of zeal. ‘The Lord told them' that this is where they were to serve for the next year (and always had great expectations that they would be a tremendous change agent through miracles resulting in impressive fruitfulness). After a few weeks or months they would discover that in God's economy the rule was that patience and perseverance in selfless love was to be the standard change agent. Miracles happened, but these zealous volunteers seldom recognized them because things didn't happen overnight. Inevitably they would eventually come to their project coordinator and share that ‘God told them' that they were called to move on to another area or ministry. "Has God changed His mind about your one year commitment to serve here?" the director would ask. They never had a good answer - but it didn't matter. If 'God told them' to move on, no institution of this world could overrule God. The project then became disadvantaged because it had to operate without a critical volunteer position. We soon came to the conclusion that except for extraordinary exceptions, we would not entertain placing young believers from charismatic churches as volunteers on our projects. As for zeal, you couldn't hold them down. As for knowledge - they simply were not grounded.
Balance. We need true zeal for the Lord and for service in His kingdom. And we need the proper knowledge to keep us on the right path.