There's Hope For TodaySample

Should a scholar become the most learned in the world – should he excel in the arts, a balanced combination of Michelangelo and Einstein – without love he is morally bankrupt, desperately lonely, and potentially dangerous.

Paul prays that knowledge would grow in the Philippians, but only in the context of abounding love. The wise sage might find a source of pride in knowledge, but there is no joy there. “Knowledge puffs up,” said Paul. Without a doubt, he was drawing from his own life experience as a scholar. His brilliance was discovered early in life, gaining him entrance to Gamaliel’s school. More than a scholar, Paul was a man of action. He was not content to make the Christian question an intellectual exercise. He coupled his deductions with destruction and set out to impose his “enlightened” worldview on the misled and the ignorant. We find him in Acts 9 “breathing threats and murder” against the disciples. Who knows how many would have been killed, courtesy of Paul’s great learning, had he not encountered Love on the Damascus road?

Some will argue for the intrinsic goodness of man, but even a cursory study of history reveals that a smart man without love is a dangerous man indeed.