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Zeal Without Knowledge…It’s Not Good – The Proverbs Series

It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.

Proverbs 19:2

The Zealous Enthusiast

Zeal is defined as enthusiasm, passion, eagerness in pursuit of something–fervor. Maybe you’re a Christian trying to share the gospel. Or rather, maybe you’re someone who wants to help the poor, or work for a world of justice. But if we do these things without sound knowledge of what we’re doing, it’s no good. We might even end up doing the opposite of what we intended, or missing the mark.

Have you ever seen someone with good intentions, eager to lend a helping hand? But unfortunately, because they have no knowledge or instruction on what to do, they end up making things more difficult?

Once, my little cousin was so enthusiastic to help us organize a laundry basket full of VHS tapes. She got to work, matching the correct tapes with their empty cases. However, once she was done, I found myself with a problem. I would open up The Lion King but find Men in Black instead. Despite her best efforts, her help ended up creating more work for me in the end.

Like this, if we lack knowledge and understanding of God, His purpose, and how He wants things to be done His way, then we could end up wasting our time. Or worse, we could end up hindering the work of God. We see this happen at the time of Jesus’s first coming. 

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 They’re about to choose someone to pray and everyone starts to get nervous. You know the drill… smile, don’t make eye contact, don’t act suspicious, close your eyes, get ready to pray.

But then, you hear your name. “Gabriella, will you pray for us?”

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Who Does God Want to Save? Just Christians or All People?

“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to hell anyway,” they say. Their faces tell it all, God hates me. God only cares about Christians. For one reason or another, many non-Christians often feel like God doesn’t care if they go to heaven or not. Like they’re on some blacklist with a sealed fate. But the truth is, God doesn’t only have Christians in His heart to save and redeem. He looks upon the whole world with this hope:

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:9

God wants everyone to have an opportunity to come to Him and have eternal life. But if this is the case, then how does the Bible say it will happen?

From One to the World – God’s Plan to Save Everyone

We can see throughout the Bible how God has worked to save people. First, they must know about Him, so He provides a way to teach them. However, God doesn’t go to each individual and personally teach them His word. The Bible would have looked a whole lot different if God had done this.

There would be no Noah leading people to the ark. No Moses to strike his staff to part the Red Sea. No prophets chosen to give God’s words of promise. It would just be every person proclaiming what they personally heard from God. And think about it…do you think every single person would say the same thing? We have to wonder–would there even be a Bible if God just talked to everyone? Would there be a need for a single, concise standard for us to verify our beliefs with?

Through the Bible we actually learn that in every generation, God chooses one person to give His Word to. That person then teaches a small group, and then that group is tasked to do the same throughout the whole earth.  

Moses and the Israelites – God’s Chosen People

Think of Moses. God entrusted him with the task of leading the nation of Israel out of captivity in Egypt. Not only that, but he also was responsible for teaching them God’s commandments. The purpose of this was to create the Israelites into the people of God. In other words, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:5-6).

This holy nation, made perfect in the eyes of God, would then be fit to teach the rest of the world about God and welcome them into His kingdom.

But how far did this plan go? You may already know, but the Israelites broke the covenant they made with God. They betrayed Him and left Him to worship idols (Hosea 6:7). If you betray God and leave Him for lifeless, man-made pieces of wood and gold, do you think He would be able to entrust the task of sharing His knowledge and heart to the whole world to you? Most definitely not. Like this, the Israelites were no longer fit to spread the word of God throughout the earth. 

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The Lord Has Done Great Things – The Psalms Series

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. 

Psalm 126

The LORD has done great things for me. 

The Captivity

Like many of the Israelites experienced throughout time, I also was born in captivity. Not physically, but under another kind of captivity that was so hard to put my finger on. Everyone told me that I was free in Christ. That my sins were atoned for and I was going straight to heaven.

Even so, I used to lie awake in the darkness of my room, wondering why there was a church on every street corner of my city but God was nowhere to be found. I began to question–is there even a God watching over us? I hoped so. And if so, what was I supposed to be doing? A sort of existential crisis from beneath my covers.

As I grew up and saw the corruption of Christianity, and later, as I  started to study the Bible itself, I realized that I had been subject to the greatest deception. All my misunderstandings and ignorance of the Bible was the jail I had been locked in, and it was the devil who had made us believe that’s what freedom looks like. Freedom to be blissfully ignorant. 

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If only you knew the countless lives that have been sacrificed to get His desperate plea to you: to come back to him.

To leave darkness and step into the light. Yes, it’s scary.

Everything we’ve ever known has actually been the greatest deception, Satan’s masterpiece.

But God is even greater – always ahead of Satan, always working in the background, quietly, naturally, and building his case.

And now He is presenting it to you.

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The Great Deception: How and Where Satan Works

When many people, religious or not, think about Satan, they often think of something like this: a red demon with horns and a pitchfork, trying to obviously tempt others to sin, to live and take in all the worldly pleasures and wealth, disregarding the consequences.

Satan is often depicted as the ruler of hell, some malevolent being whom you sell your soul to. He often is shown targeting people who are from God or people who are debating whether or not to do something morally questionable (the angel vs devil on the shoulder bit). Satan has also been shown working in places such as a lawyer’s office or as some top business executive.

But in reality, have you really given much thought about where Satan actually works? And who does he actually target?

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Would Jesus Choose to Explain the Secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven to You?

In today’s world, we are all about inclusivity. We don’t want to alienate people or make them feel left out or bad. That’s a great thing when dealing with people in our daily lives. We should be loving and accepting of others. We can share information and knowledge with people we meet and form relationships with them. 

But if you had a deep secret, you wouldn’t want to tell just anybody, right? You would only tell the people you trust. If you told just anyone, that person could tell someone else and then your secret is no longer a secret. We all have things we would only tell to people we trust. God has those things, too.

Jesus and the Secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven

We know that Jesus came and preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. On one occasion, after giving a parable about the kingdom of heaven, Jesus’s disciples realized that they were unable to fully understand the meaning. So they decided to ask him about it.

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand."

Matthew 13:10-13

The parables in God’s Word are called the “secrets of the kingdom of Heaven.” So do you think Jesus would tell these secrets to just anybody?

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When We Are Weak, He is Strong

If it’s your job to delegate important tasks on a team, do you choose a member who is weak? Or do you generally choose the person most qualified in knowledge, skill, and experience and leave them to it? It’s perfectly acceptable and expected to do this in our daily lives. But have you ever noticed that the ones who are chosen by God to lead His people and preach His word aren’t always the most learned, the most willing, or the most objectively “qualified?” 

Now that’s just silly, some may think. We want things to get done efficiently, done fast, and done well. If we’re going to give an important task to someone underqualified, we should at least pair them up with someone who knows what they’re doing. Evenso, God has His way, and we humans have ours – and they’re as different as heaven and earth. 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

So let’s understand why God works in ways that we, as people, normally wouldn’t. And while doing this, try to consider things from God’s perspective as the Creator. 

The Purpose of Choosing the Weak

Choosing the Weak Glorifies God

Throughout each era of the Bible, God chooses people to carry out His will on earth. Noah, obeying God’s command, built the ark and warned people of the coming flood. Moses, with God’s guidance, led the nation of Israel through the desert to the Promised Land, and Joshua completed the work by leading them into that Promised Land. Jesus testified about the fulfillment of the Old Testament, established a new covenant with believers, and died on the cross for the atonement of our sins.

During his ministry, Jesus chose certain people to also teach and task with spreading God’s Word. And as Jesus was about to ascend, he tasked his disciples to spread the gospel to the whole world. In short, those who are chosen by God are tasked with teaching and spreading His word to everyone. But what kinds of people does God usually choose for this task?

God’s Strength Shines When We are Weak

Let’s look at an explanation from the Apostle Paul, when he was praying to God about a certain hardship he was suffering.

…“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecution, difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Here the apostle Paul writes about how he will boast in his weaknesses but not in himself. We see that despite his weakness, Christ’s power rests upon him and makes him strong. 

What were these weaknesses? In Romans 7:15-25, Paul discusses two laws waging war in his body – good and evil. His mind that is a slave to God’s law, and his sinful nature that is a slave to sin. A body of death that he seeks rescue from.

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing.

Romans 7:19

Paul struggled with sin as all the rest of us do. He battled daily with his own will versus the will of God, and also suffered countless other hardships while carrying out the work of the gospel. Think about the task that was given to Paul by Jesus: preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles – people who had no connection to Jesus or God, people who have their own idols or religions – but he was to go and spread the gospel to as many as he could.

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We might think, “Then why do bad things happen? Why is there so much suffering?” If we just take a moment to really consider the state of our world today, it becomes very clear that God is not the ruler of this world.

The devil is.

What God who is good, who is holy, who is love, would create a world that looks like our current time? Wouldn’t He have created a paradise with no mourning, pain, or death?

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Some wish for it to happen soon, so they can escape the miseries of this world and be raptured to heaven.

Others feel uncertain of what to do or how to face it. Some avoid thinking about it altogether and focus on the present moment. 

There are still others who dread the day of the Lord’s return because they believe that day will literally be the end of the world. A kind of doomsday apocalypse.

But what about you?