Who/What Do You Know?
Some people say it’s all about what you know. Some people say it’s all about who you know. Does your knowledge of content, your expertise in the relevant matters, give you everything you need for success in your field? Or does your ability to connect to people, to get friendly with the major power players, make you go further? As a seminarian, I’m tempted to favor the former option. I’ve been well-educated in the Bible and theology. I’ve taken classes on church leadership and liturgy. Surely, I can rely on my education to make me successful in ministry. However, I’ve also been to Synod Assembly. I’ve seen some of the leaders of the church sitting outside during educational sessions and simply talking to one another, focusing on connections over hearing whatever the speaker has to say. If that is what leaders are doing, maybe they simply already know all that they need to know, or maybe they have learned that socializing is more important at some point.
Often, when people comment on this dynamic, “who you know” bears a nefarious undertone. The expression is talking about incompetent people given positions of authority because they know the person in charge. This is a criticism of nepotism and the favor economy hidden in a bureaucracy that rewards insiders while exploiting everyone else. And we are right to criticize this. Not only do incompetent leaders cause problems for everyone over whom they exercise authority, but nothing leads to more justified jealousy from the well-educated hard workers of the world than someone dumber and lazier than them bossing them around simply because they were in the same fraternity as the boss in college. It’s difficult to say whether or not this drive to get out from under such a boss is natural or socialized. Certainly, we have values communicated in stories and adages throughout history, suggesting something wrong with this picture.
Whether natural or the product of society, we tend to drift toward some kind of meritocracy as the answer. Leaders should be the best. We should shine a light upon the people who work the hardest, make the best decisions, and know the most. We should value education and experience over personal connections. Society should favor the strong. They have earned that favor. Of course, we always hope that the strong who have earned it will wield their power justly. If they climbed their way up from the bottom through hard work, skill, dedication, and intelligence, then surely they will favor others who try their best and have mercy on those who fail. And it is true, broadly speaking, that meritocracy is superior to the feudal lordship of medieval times. However, sometimes the strong aren’t gentle. Sometimes knowledge brings power, but neither comes with kindness.
In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul addresses this problem in the Corinthian community. In the battle between knowledge and love, knowledge is gaining the upper hand. There are some Corinthian Christians who have fully embraced what Paul has said about the Gospel, understanding that they are free from laws concerning ceremonial purity. They no longer experience conflicted consciences when eating meat bought from the market, meat that could have originally been offered to one of the many gods of the Greco-Roman world. Meanwhile, other Christians haven’t grown comfortable with this yet. Certainly, they understand that Jesus has saved them from their sin, but it must still be corrupting to eat food offered to a false god. In this conflict, the Christians who ate anything looked down upon the others as weak, underdeveloped in their faith. They thought the whole church could be better built up through the knowledge that comes through the Gospel, knowledge of their absolute freedom in Christ. However, anyone who has been called weak or stupid before knows exactly how these other Christians felt about it. They probably saw these “strong” Christians as arrogant and overly self-assured. They probably didn’t want to have anything to do with them. Because of the pride of these “strong” Christians, the unity in Christ of the Corinthian church was in jeopardy. Some people may have even been driven away from the faith. Strength and knowledge, left unchecked by love and connection, were tearing the community apart.
This is perhaps a useful lesson for us to learn today. Among all denominations, there are Christians who delve deeply into theology and the Bible, and anytime there is an apparent imbalance in knowledge between two Christians, there is always a chance for arrogance to prevail over love. We trust in our knowledge to resolve disputes, and often end up causing fights that hurt people and drive them away from deeper connection. Certainly, knowledge of history, theology, and especially, of the Bible is important for Christians. However, all knowledge wielded without love is more dangerous than it is useful. This is not to say that correction should never be given or that all bad ideas should be endlessly tolerated, but if the wise sit on their pillars of wisdom and mock those who toil below, then no one is built up and the church crumbles.
Of course, I’m not arguing against merit. I’m not suggesting we move in the direction of prioritizing who you know over what you know. Unlike me, Paul doesn’t wait for the end of the blog post to place the most important insight. At the beginning of this chapter, in verse three, Paul finds the important third option between what you know and who you know. If we truly love God, then God knows us. It isn’t our knowledge of God that matters at the end of the day. Certainly, a faithful articulation of the Gospel is important and we ought to invest time in truly knowing and understanding God’s word. However, more important than our intelligence is the fact that God knows us. This is our certain hope, not our skill and wisdom, but that God sees us and loves us deeply, calling us out of loveless darkness, out of ignorant stubbornness, and into enlightened love. Only through God’s work of knowing and loving us, can we come to truly love one another and know what the Gospel means for our world. Whenever we are in danger of being puffed up by our own knowledge, we should remember that we are only here because God knows and loves us, and no matter who our interlocutors may be, God knows and loves them too.
