Doubt and Fear What is the Difference Between Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge

Welcome to episode 90. We're not going to change anything up today.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 90. If this is your first time with us, welcome aboard. If you're a frequent flyer, welcome back, you fanatic. Well, I am going to dig into what I was talking about yesterday about the difference between knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. And I want to give you just a picture because that's kind of what I like to do. I want to give you a picture of what each one of those looks like and how you can apply them to your life because it's one thing to see it. It's another thing to get an understanding. Again, we're going back to wisdom and understanding and knowledge. With all of that, we want to be able to take these truths because you're going to see these words in the Bible, and when you see them, I want you to be able to understand— and I put air quotes up— which— what each word means. Without further ado, let's get to Proverbs. We're going to go to Proverbs 4:5. Get wisdom, get understanding, do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth. And then we're gonna go to 4:7, wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and in all you're getting, get understanding. That's wisdom and understanding, and I wanna throw in knowledge just for the heck of it because we've got 3 different things, and they all kinda sorta sound like the same thing. And the reason that I'm talking about it, if you remember in the previous episode, we talked about the parable of the sower, sowing the seed in the heart, you know, the kingdom of God. We've talked about all that. The reason that I'm staying on this and grinding on this and digging in on it is because what Jesus said when he was talking to his disciples and they asked him and said, "Master, what were you talking about of the seed and the different types of ground?" And he said, "You do not understand this parable, how will you understand any of the parables?" And let me go to that scripture real quick. And that's found in Mark 4:13. And he said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?" I've kind of wanted to bring that to our forefront because Jesus said, look, if you don't understand this one, you're not gonna understand any of them. And so I just put, since this was the first one that he ever, and the only one I think he ever said that about, I think that kind of puts an extra bit of importance on understanding this one parable. And that kind of, to me, it gives significance to getting into the understanding of this parable. And he used the word in Matthew, and that's the whole reason that I was talking about wisdom and understanding and knowledge. When we read some of these scriptures, I don't want us to just gloss over these words, and I just make the assumption sometimes that, oh, well, you know what that means, you know what understanding means, or you know the difference between understanding and wisdom or knowledge. And we throw these words out there without quote, meditating on them and digging them around. So I want to just help you and kind of show you what, what kind of I do when I'm looking at a word and I think, well, is that the same thing? Or I think to myself, is— does that mean something different? And I think it does. And so I'm going to get into that right now. And so at the end of his explanation where he's talking about the different seeds and the different— not the different seeds, but the different grounds that he throws the seed in, which is the word of God and he's talking about the stony ground. We've already gone through all that, and I don't want to rehash that, but at the very end where he talks about the good soil or the good ground, and that's in Matthew 13:23, "But he who receives seed on good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces some 100, some 60, and some 30. And I have not told you yet, but You know, there's 3 or 4 different— there's 4 types of soil: the hard, the stony, the one with all the different cares of the world, the tares and the— and all the thistles, and the good soil. But did you notice in the good soil there are 3 different levels of return? There's 100 and some 60 and some 30. So not only do you have 4 types of soil or 4 types of ground for your heart. You also, even in the good ground, there are 3 types, as Jesus is saying in this, in this parable. There is some 100, some 60, and some 30. So all good soil doesn't necessarily produce the same. And so I think there's different levels of good soil, and I know there is because Jesus said there was. But I want to get into the understanding and the knowledge, and we're going to go back to Proverbs. But I wanted to talk about this soil because this is— when I read that scripture yesterday, it said that he who understands it. And so I want to make sure that we, quote, understand what we're reading and how when we start discerning the word of God that we know what the difference between wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are. And I know it can kind of get a little confusing when you're driving down the road or you're working out, but knowledge is going to be the easiest one to understand. And knowledge is just what you're listening to right now. It's the podcast, it's watching a video, it's reading a book. It's just taking in information. That's just— it's just taking in the information. It's why I think a lot of people, you know, they watch a lot of videos or they watch some Instagram stuff or they watch some YouTube videos or some education or read a book book, but what all they're doing is just taking in knowledge. That if you don't do anything with that knowledge, it just sits there. And so knowledge is just, in my analogy and in my way of thinking, knowledge is just information. It is just you watching the video and you're not processing it. You, that is the knowledge. You, you now know something you didn't know. Now when you take it to the next level, understanding, and I'm going to kind of use a, an analogy of, let's use business. Since some of you, or most of you, have your own business or have done business in the past. But knowledge would be, you know, the data that comes in from your business that you put on a balance sheet. So knowledge is just the information. So you just put, or you have your accounting accountant or whatever put the information into a software program, and it spits out the balance sheet. So the balance sheet, that's your knowledge. Now you can look at a piece of paper or your balance sheet, and you have the knowledge of what's going on in your business, if that kind of makes sense. Now, understanding is then the ability to take the knowledge, the information on the balance sheet, and then know what the numbers say. You know how each one is in relationship to the other. You know what an asset and a liability and what capital— you know, you know what all those, all that information means, because knowledge is just the information. Knowledge is just what is on that balance sheet. Understanding is knowing what that balance sheet is telling you about your business. If you have more assets than liabilities, your balance sheet looks a little bit better because you, you've got a profit, or your net worth is worth more. If it's telling you something else, then you're understanding. But the understanding is actually knowing what the knowledge is telling you. Being able to look at the numbers on your balance sheet and understand what each number represents or where your business is, that's understanding. I hope that makes sense. And then wisdom, wisdom is then taking that understanding and that information. Now you have the, now you have the knowledge and then the understanding. You know what these numbers mean. Wisdom is then taking all of that information, all of that understanding, and then applying something from the outside, like making a change in your business. Like if you've got too many— let's say you got too much debt, you've got too many accounts payable, and so now you've got to find some vendors. You need to cut out some— you've got too many expenses. You're going to have to use your understanding of, look, my balance sheet don't look right, and so I've got to make— wisdom is making decisions based on the understanding you have of the balance sheets. You're looking at the knowledge You're looking at the information, and then you start making decisions based on those numbers, and you say, "Look, I can't keep making this. I think if I cut this expense out and this expense out, my business will run better." That is wisdom, is being able to apply practical applications to your understanding and to the information. And so it's, it's the next level, and it's the ability— and then we're going to bring this back to the Word of God. The Word of God, the Bible— knowledge is just the words. It's just the words on the page. That's the— that's knowledge. That's being able to read, having the ability to read it. Well, then understanding is knowing what you're reading. So now you understand what it's saying. And then wisdom is then having the practical application of what all of that information is doing, like how you then take all of this information, all of this understanding, like you understand that you need, you know, you need to pull some of those rocks out, and you know you need to get to work, stop worrying about the cares of this world. I mean, that's wisdom. That's understanding and knowledge. You know, you heard about the rocks and the soil and all that. Wisdom is then taking all of that information and then discovering what that rock is and then applying a way to pull that rock out of your life. Now you're pulling these rocks out, And now you're going to have— that's wisdom, is showing you what the rock is and then having the ability to figure out how to pull that out. And I hope that makes sense. It's kind of when you start dealing with abstract information, it gets a little swimmy in my head. And I'm not really, you know, English is not my first language, and I kind of struggle sometimes when I start trying to be overly intelligent. I take pride in the fact that if I walk into a room with 3 or more people that I know that I'm not the smartest person that's in that room. So I don't have a problem at all with that. But when I start having to talk about these concepts, and my whole, my whole motivation is to help you be a better you and to help you be the hero of your story. So if you can kind of— and you probably have a better understanding than I do— I just want to make sure when we're talking about wisdom and understanding and knowledge, that when I'm talking about understanding, it's being able to take the knowledge that we have and apply some more intelligence to that. And then wisdom, and it's sometimes the wisdom of God, that's asking God, say, how do I use this understanding and this knowledge that I have? How do I do that to better my life? And that's what we're— that's what we're here to do. And I appreciate that. And I just looked up at the clock and this thing is going a lot longer than I wanted it to go, and I probably rambled more than I like to ramble, but this is You know, this is kind of mental push-ups for me, and so it was a little bit of a struggle, but I appreciate you being there, and I want to pray real quick. God, I pray that the person listening to this would understand the difference between wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. And Lord, I hope I did not confuse them, and I pray that Holy Spirit, that you would help them open up their understanding, open up the wisdom, Open up the knowledge that, that only you can do. Lord, we have the mind of Christ, and I pray in Jesus' name that you would open it up to the person listening to this podcast. And I thank you, Lord. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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