“Even zeal is not good without knowledge; and the one who
acts hastily sins.” (Proverbs 19:2) “I
can testify about them that they have zeal for God, but not according to
knowledge.” (Romans 10:2)
Paul bared
his heart in Romans 10 as he expressed his deep desire for the salvation of
Israel. When we read these words we feel
the anguish of his soul, probably because we also know folks who are not saved,
people we would dearly love to be saved.
In Israel’s case, Paul noted that they certainly have a great zeal for
God, but they do not have knowledge.
What does that mean? It means
they had a “head” knowledge of the Scriptures and of God, but they did not have
a heart understanding of how Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures. They did not have a personal knowing of the
Lord by faith. It seems that Paul, in
part at least, drew on this concept from Proverbs.
Zeal is a
good thing. Nothing wrong with
zeal. But zeal uninformed is a wild
horse: beautiful but untamed and not
really useful. For zeal to hit its mark, it must serve the purposes of
God. It has to be bridled and hitched by
knowledge and understanding that are derived from a personal walk with God in
faith. When truth is brought to fruition
through personal understanding impacted by a personal faith relationship with
the Lord, zeal gets hitched or bridled or saddled, and that is when it moves
toward fulfilling the purposes of God.
By all
means, may we be a people of zeal, but let’s be certain that our zeal is
informed by the Scriptures and by our personal faith walk with God, so that our
zeal will not “miss the mark.”
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