Knowledge Gives Favor
June 5th, 2009 | Michael Q. Pink
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11
Today we are completing the fifth of five natural traits that more often than not, carry the day. Speed and strength were the first two and they are based on physical endowments, which one may be born with, but must develop. The next three deal with the area of the intellect: Wisdom, understanding and skill.
The word translated as “skill” is “yada” and appears in Scripture nearly 900 times and almost every time, it is translated as know, knowing or knowledge. This is significant because Solomon over and over again in the book of Proverbs speaks of these three, knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Knowledge is the accumulation of information. Wisdom knows what to do with that knowledge and understanding is the comprehension of the effects on the heart or emotions.
Another way of saying it is: Knowledge just is. Wisdom knows what to do with knowledge, but understanding feels the impact. Solomon is saying here that favor comes to people who know stuff. Knowledge gives you favor. It increases your value to the organization. If you have understanding on the other hand, (the ability to connect facts to the emotional impact), it tends to bring riches. That’s because people buy on emotion and justify with logic.
So the lesson here is threefold… lay up knowledge (Pr 10:14) to increase your value to the marketplace, grow in wisdom so you can turn knowledge into bread, (provision). Then learn to help folks understand the emotional impact, the advantage, the joy, etc of your product or offering. When you do that, they will put riches in your hand.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:08 am
How is this reconciled with the scripture used in a the post about timing and chance? I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding…; but time and chance happens to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11
June 5th, 2009 at 11:42 am
THe reconciliation is in the UNDERSTANDING part. When read at first glance it looks like everything is a mess left only to time and chance, however it can be said that chance is only uncontrolled favour. There is such a thing however as understanding where favour comes from. In this scripture by looking at the statement of “Vanity and pursuit of Wind” theme of Ecclesiastes we UNDERSTAND the “Purpose and the pursuit of influence” theme included in it. Nothing vain exists, wihtout first the truth which establishes it. Thank you God, you gives us a spirit of discernment of the truth. And Michael does this brilliantly! This blog is a Winner Michael. Thanks and blessing!
June 5th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
This message was truly helpful and inspirational to me. Thank you for sharing your insight.
June 5th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Michael,
You have lost me. I was following Time and Chance happen to all men but please show me in scripture where one man showed another man how to have favor with God and charged money for that knowledge. I feel the Roman Catholic Church fell into the error that Catholic Priests were so influnential with God that they could control what God did by selling indulgences that would limit a man’ s time in purgatory. Of course the whole idea of purgatory was conconcted in the minds of priests to control people just as the Pharisees did. They had little, if any, influence at all with God to effect God’ s favor on another human being. I always laugh when I read the announcments for some faith healing services that say the Holy Spirit will be present to heal all your diseases and to give you your miracle. Oh, Really! Who is controlling the Holy Spirit to compel him to such things on the schedule of man. (And the hidden money grubbing lie is that when people come before the God, the King, they must not come empty handed.) Every Benny Hinn Healing servce raises hundreds of thousands of dollars with this lie. When people do get healed in such services, it is because Benny or whoever have favor with God to get another person healed or becuase of the money they gave. I think not. God’ s healing is not for sale. We should pay doctors for their knowledge of healing but there is no way we can repay God for his knowledge and what he does in our lives. Benny admits he has no influence with God to get people healed. The truth is time and chance happen to every man because in this present age we cannot know for sure what God’s will is for our lives at every point so we can work with God. If we did know God’ s immediate will for our life, we might not like it. God continues to work in mystery. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manisfestation of the sons of God. (who will bring peace and reconciliation of all things in God’ s timing not in theirs. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly (as King Solomon talks about in Eccls.), but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope. We cannot undo this vanity of our lives as much as we might like to but God has given us hope that one day all things will be reconciled in Christ Jesus as he destroys the devil’s works and removes his influence from the consciousness of all mankind. And thereby restores God’ s kingdom on earth so that all men will be saved and come to the knowledge of the eternal truth that “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness oh Lord. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he canot deny himself and the love he has for all humanity who he created in his own image, which is the imgae of Christ Jesus. Satan has no power to thwart the work of God to conform all whom God foreknew into the image and stature of Christ. For we all are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Amen
David Thompson
June 6th, 2009 at 4:29 am
Hi David;
Thanks for posting. It would help if you could be more succint in your posts, but to your question about showing where charging one man money for showing him how to have favor with God is in the Bible… It simply isn’t, nor was that my contention at all. That would be similar to Tetzel selling indulgences.
Proverbs 3 talks about finding favor in the sight of God and man. I was simply pointing out that people who are particularly knowledgeable in an area tend to find favor in the marketplace. I am in no way implying that if they are really smart or knowledgeable, they will find favor with God. It will however help them find favor with man.
Blessings, Michael
June 6th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Dear CMJ;
The first five traits, speed, strength, wisdom, understanding and knowledge have natural effects. Those with speed win the race. Those with strength win the battle, etc. My posts on this topic have largely been about these naturally occuring truths. Next week I hope to get into the last two which are the game changers. Time and Chance. And Who controls time and chance… Selah.
Thanks Edrick for helping out with your comment!
Blessings on you Brenda.
June 6th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Michael,
Thank you for your prompt, clearly worded, good and honest reply to my post. If you had been more “succint” as you said, in your original post, I would not have posted as I did.
Please tell me where I was not succint in my post? I feel I was very succint in my wording such that you clearly understood what I was saying. I might have addressed something that you had not intended to say but that had to do with your lack of being succint, not mine.
Kingdom blessings,
David
P.S. I had a wonderful trip to Panama last week. Didn’t learn much about the Gamboa Rain Forest with respect to the business principles you see in operation there but the tour of the Panama Canal was a wonderful climax to my reading the book about how the canal was built entitled, “The Path Between the Seas, by David McCollough. In that book I believe Mr. McCollough addressed many very effective kingdom management principles that were used to get that enormous task completed. One of these management principles was proper concern for the workers and their families within the context of the curtural norms of the day. (There was racial discrimination against black people) I think the reason the French failed in their effort to build the canal was a lack of concern for the workers and their families. Under the French, living conditions were miserable and some 20,000 workers died of disease and other reasons. Under American managment, the living conditions were so good that workers did not want to leave the Canal Zone community. Even Blacks had it better in the Canal Zone than in their own countries. The American managment had created somewhat of a kingdom socialistic community in which most every one shared with one another and all were honest and did not try to exploit one another, notwithstanding the ugliness of racial discrimination. Many churches and other community organizations were encouraged and thrived in their purpose to bring people together to express and carry on their common interests and beliefs. But all the workers knew they were there to build the canal and the U.S. Army managment was able to keep them focused on their common goal. Any worker who lost sight of that common goal were either corrected or removed from the operation. I believe it could be said of the American Army managed Canal Zone Community the same that was said of the early Christian kingdom community, “They had favor of all men.”
June 6th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Hi David;
Thanks for your reply. I too have a problem at times in being succint. In the blog format, shorter comments tend to get read and responded to more than lengthy ones, despite the quality of their content. Nothing more was intended.
Blessings, Michael
June 7th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Good job Michael! The Holy Spirit has illuminated me via your writings!
June 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Hi Marc;
Good to hear from you always. Please give Cheryl a call (941-377-9384) an update her on your contact info. We might be interested in some content contribution from you.
Blessings,
Michael
July 5th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
knowledge give wonder to men and knowledge is power through everything that you could imagine. We will not grow abundantly if we don’t have such great wisdom. getting more knowledge is very helpful in our emotional freedom a technique which can learn through eft training and I have learned that from Gary Craig which can give you also some vast knowledge about it.