Spirit of Knowledge

I am totally open to any correction in my logic for this blog. But regardless if I'm wrong or right, it was pretty awesome :)

We were in Bible Study, talking about angels. Interesting topic. Now, anyone who has been in a Bible study with me knows that I'm a talker. I'm always willing to dive in, ask the odd questions, apply with examples, etc. Well, at this particular moment we were reading the story of when Satan intices David to take a census of the town. I've read the story several times, and usually asked the same question: "God, why was this such a big deal?"

I had a feeling that this question might be posed. Immediately I could feel myself want to answer this hypothetically asked question. But then, I came to the Lord. "God, I confess that I am not a biblical scholar, nor do I have any understanding of the purpose of Old Testament censuses, nor do I know why it was bad to take one aside from the fact that you said no. So, in light of this, I'm going to sit this question out. But could you make it a bit clearer?"

So I started reading the passage, and as I read, new implications of the text started to fill my mind. The logic began to flow like a staircase: each step led to another, higher step. I saw that in taking a census, David was (in a sense) calculating all he had, his manpower, and that this knowledge could cause him to rely on this census, not on the Lord's provision. It could cause a person to say, "Oh no, I need more people" or "I am a weak kingdom" or "I am the most fantabulous ruler in the world!!!"

So as these ideas arranged themselvs in my mind, I still maintained a humble silence, because these ideas were (of course) my own, not from a seminary. How could I offer such "insight" as "wisdom" when I didn't even study this?

But then David, another member of our study, who has GONE to seminary, started answering this question, and his words were the thoughts in my head! I mean, literally! He said exactly what I was thinking!!

This incident reminded me that knowledge and wisdom is from the Lord. It also confirmed that I do believe that one of my gifts of the Spirit is knowledge, which is different from wisdom. The gift may not have fully matured, but I do believe that what happened this evening was from God. Not subconcious knowledge, not context clues, because I have never heard this talked about AND I had read this several times before.

No, this knowledge of OT census consequences was from God. Praise be to Him!