When Being Too Smart Is A Bad Thing

Shalom.

I found this gem at NewManMag.com and thought I would share it with those in the "blogosphere."

The Pharisees possessed great knowledge of the Scriptures without knowing the spirit of them; therefore, their ministry produced death. It pulled and pushed people away from the heart of God rather than drawing them to Him. They separated people from God with their legalistic knowledge, representing God as they perceived Him—with their heads and not their hearts.

Jesus declared, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4, NKJV). Notice He did not say "proceeded." That would be past tense. The Scriptures alone are what proceeded out of the mouth of God. He said "proceeds," which is present tense. We must know the Lord of the Scriptures to know what is proceeding out of His mouth today.

Jesus said in John 16:13, "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth" (NKJV). With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can know what Jesus is saying.

You may ask then, "What good are the Scriptures?" They are guidelines to assist and direct us. They are God-breathed, and when quickened by the Holy Spirit they become alive in our hearts and not just in our heads. They are the standard we use to confirm that we have heard from the Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit will never speak contrary to the Scriptures. But we can get hung up when we limit what the Holy Spirit can say or do to that which fits into our mental understanding of the Scriptures. This was the error of the Pharisees.


—John Bevere

Lord, please guard my heart for the legalism of the Pharisees. I want to teach others the spirit of Your Word, not the letter of the law.

John Bevere, Breaking Intimidation (1995), 172–173.