We can spend years studying scripture, listening to sermons, filing notebooks with notes. But with all of that, we can become more argumentative, more critical, more certain ‘I am right ‘ in what I understand, all the while becoming less patient, less humble, and maybe even less quick to repent.
Knowing correct doctrine is not the same thing as being transformed by correct doctrine. Truth matters. Sound doctrine matters. It is foundational. It is what Christ left with us through His inspired words. It’s what He gave His life for.
Truth does matter. But it was never intended just to fill our heads. It was designed to change our hearts. If all our belief does is just to help us to win arguments, to correct other people, and to feel superior to those who don’t see exactly our way, we need to ask a hard question. Do we love truth, or do we just love being right in our own minds? Because those two things can look quite identical on the surface, but be worlds apart in our hearts.
Let’s look at Scriptures that describe what a spirit-filled doctrine should be producing in each of us.
- Arrogance vs. Edification
“Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:1-2). Paul isn’t saying that knowledge is bad. He doesn’t tell the Corinthians to stop studying, to stop learning, to stop having convictions. He is telling the Church that knowledge by itself leads in a certain direction.
Knowledge that isn’t married to love always drifts into an affair with pride. If you aren’t in a marriage covenant with love, what you are studying, what you are becoming is all about yourself and not about our Creator.
The Corinthians knew that idols weren’t real gods. They had that knowledge within their hearts. They were correct. So, they felt free to eat meat that was offered to idols. Technically, their doctrine was 100% correct. They were not failing in understanding. But how did they use that knowledge? They took their “rightness” to look down on weaker Christians that were wrestling with their own consciences. They prioritized their theological liberty over their own brother’s and sister’s spiritual safety (1 Corinthians 8:4-13).
Then Paul says something that’s zeroing in on that attitude: “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.” Real knowledge, real biblical knowledge, mature knowledge, always produces humility, not arrogance. Because the more you actually see of God, and the more you understand about God, should not make you feel grand. It should make you feel small, humble.
When Isaiah saw the King, the Lord of hosts, he didn’t state, “I now see everything. I have seen the Lord of hosts.” He said, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). And Job, having heard God, wasn’t mighty in his own eyes at that point. But declared “I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).
Real knowledge, when it actually takes root in your heart, doesn’t make you taller. It makes you low and subdued. Does your understanding of truth make you love people better, or does it just make you feel superior to them as though you have a secret knowledge that nobody else shares. Because if knowledge isn’t producing love, Paul says plainly, it’s not producing what it’s supposed to in you:
“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:13-18).
James is drawing a stark contrast between two kinds of wisdom. One that looks and sounds and appears outwardly as religious. But that’s not, as he states, from God. It’s not from above.
Look at the spiritually diagnostic question that James is asking each of us. “Who is wise and understanding among you?” What is he expecting as an answer? What do we say to him to communicate how spiritually healthy we actually are? It’s not necessarily, who has the most Bible verses memorized, or who wins the most debates!
He states that a person that is spiritually wise and understanding should be known, “By his good conduct, in the meekness of wisdom”. Understand that meekness does not mean weakness. It means strength under control. Meekness is having conviction, having that pure knowledge that Christ left us with but maintaining it with gentleness instead of using it like a club with our brothers and sisters.
James states the antithesis of spiritually healthy wisdom: “Bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.” And that’s what will come of it if we allow it to reside on the surface. If it’s merely something that we do for show. He minces no words. If that’s what is driving your wisdom, your correctness, your doctrinal precision and all that you rely on in yourself, that’s not heavenly. It’s in fact earthly, unspiritual and demonic.
Calling it demonic is a bit of a rough condemnation. But understand this. Satan knows more true theology than anybody here on earth. He did have perfect doctrine. What did he do with it? What happened to his perfect understanding? We read that he and his demons believe every true thing about God. And what do they do? They tremble (James 2:19). They know what true doctrine is.
James called the practice of following how Satan used true understanding and turned it into false knowledge and practices, demonic. Correct knowledge with a proud, self-exalting heart can be demonic in its intent because it produces disorder, it produces division and “every vile practice” (James 3:16). We can be theologically accurate and spiritually poisoned at the very same time.
James then paints a picture of what Wisdom from God produces (James 3:17):
- First pure: Being pure to begin with. We can’t start with cloudy understanding. First pure: undivided, with sincere motives.
- Peaceable, That’s seeking reconciliation, not conflict
- Gentle. Not needing to win by force
- Open to reason. We can be corrected. We aren’t rigid and defensive
- Full of mercy. We’re looking for ways to extend grace, not withhold it.
- Impartial. Not playing favorites. Not picking fights based upon pride.
- Sincere. Without hypocrisy. No hidden agendas, not a performance-based religion.
Are those the traits that your theology is producing in yourself? Are you peaceable, or do you secretly enjoy the fight? Are you open to reason, or do you get defensive when somebody questions your beliefs? Are you merciful towards people who may see things differently, or quietly write them off?
James finishes that chapter stating, “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:18). That’s the key. We have to be peacemakers like Jesus Christ.
- Justification or Exaltation
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:10 -14).
The Pharisee was not lying about his resume. He fasted, he tithed, he avoided sins. His theology was very openly correct. It looked great on paper. But look at his prayer. This wasn’t a prayer to God the Father. This was a speech about himself with God as his audience. His righteousness was based upon the unrighteousness of others. This is what unrepentant, prideful “correct” theology does. It cannot stand on its own; it must measure itself against others to feel secure.
Compare that to the tax collector. He didn’t even lift his eyes, or compare himself to others or list accomplishments. He simply asked, “God be merciful to me, a sinner. Be merciful to me, somebody that is not worthy of Your calling, of Your grace.” As Christ Himself said, “He alone went before the Father, and was justified.”
I’m sure Jesus shocked those listening to this. The tax collector, the one that was assumed theologically and morally disqualified, went to his house justified not the Pharisee. Not the one with the outward resume. The Pharisee when to his home unchanged, unjustified and trapped in a way by his own pride.
It is possible to know all the correct traits about righteousness and still walk away from God’s presence unchanged because we have never really bowed respectfully in His presence. We’ve never really become humble before the Father. The tax collector didn’t have a better theology than the Pharisee. He had a broken and repentant heart. And Jesus says that’s what God desires.
So, looking at these three passages, Paul tells us knowledge without love puffs up. James tells us wisdom from above is known by its fruit and Jesus tells us it is possible to check all the right boxes and still go home unjustified,
What God wants is not a resume of rightness, but a broken and repentant heart. Because sound theology is not the finish line. It’s the starting line. It’s supposed to lead us to God the Father, through Jesus Christ.
If your growing knowledge of God’s word isn’t producing patience with people who frustrate you, humility to those who challenge you and quickness to repent when you are shown you’re wrong then something has gone sideways.
Because in the end, the goal was never simply to know the truth. The goal has always been to align our hearts and mind with the One who is the Truth. The One who asks humanity to put on His and His Father’s nature and character (Galatians 5:22-24).
Knowing correct doctrine is not the same thing as being transformed by correct doctrine.
Robb Harris