The longest way round is sometimes the shortest way home.  The Apostle begins far away from the subject in hand by running a contrast between knowledge and love, and setting the latter first.  But his contrast is very relevant to his purpose.  Small questions should be solved on great principles.

The first principle laid down by Paul is the superiority of love over knowledge, the bearing of which on the question in hand will appear presently.  We note that there is first a distinct admission of the Corinthians’ intelligence, though there is probably a tinge of irony in the language ‘We know that we all have knowledge.’  ’You Corinthians are fully aware that you are very superior people.  Whatever else you know, you know that, and I fully recognise it.’

The admission is followed by a sudden, sharp comment, to which the Corinthians’ knowledge that they knew laid them open.  Swift as the thrust of a spear comes flashing ‘Knowledge puffeth up.’  Puffed-up things are swollen by wind only, and the more they are inflated the hollower and emptier they are; and such a sharp point as Paul’s saying shrivels them.  The statement is not meant as the assertion of a necessary or uniform result of knowledge, but it does put plainly a very usual result of it, if it is unaccompanied by love.  It is a strange, sad result of superior intelligence or acquirements, that it so often leads to conceit, to a false estimate of the worth and power of knowing, to a ridiculous over-valuing of certain acquirements, and to an insolent contempt and cruel disregard of those who have them not.  Paul’s dictum has been only too well confirmed by experience.

‘Love builds up,’ or ‘edifies.’  Probably the main direction in which that building up is conceived of as taking effect, is in aiding the progress of our neighbours, especially in the religious life.  But the tendency of love to rear a fair fabric of personal character is not to be overlooked.  In regard to effect on character, the palm must be given to love, which produces solid excellence far beyond what mere knowledge can effect.  Further, that pluming one’s self on knowledge is a sure proof of ignorance.  The more real our acquirements, the more they disclose our deficiencies.  All self-conceit hinders us from growing intellectually or morally, and intellectual conceit is the worst kind of it.

Very significantly, love to God, and not the simple emotion of love without reference to its object, is opposed to knowledge; for love so directed is the foundation of all excellence, and of all real love to men.  Love to God is not the antithesis of true knowledge, but it is the only victorious antagonist of the conceit of knowing.  Very significantly, too, does Paul vary his conclusion in verse 3 by saying that the man who loves God ‘is known of Him,’ instead of, as we might have expected, ‘knows Him.’  The latter is true, but the statement in the verse puts more strongly the thought of the man’s being an object of God’s care.  In regard, then, to their effects on character, in producing consideration and helpfulness to others, and in securing God’s protection, love stands first, and knowledge second.