A Wise Man, and a Man of Knowledge

newton3005 said:

If you had a choice between being friends with a wise man or a man of knowledge, who would you choose? If you had a choice between whom to follow of the two, as in being aware of what the person does or communicates, as opposed to being friends with, whom would you choose? Who on Facebook would you request to be a friend, and whom would you merely follow?

Proverbs 24:5 makes a possible distinction by inference, between a wise man and a man of knowledge. It says, “A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might...” Keep in mind that in considering any passage in the Bible, we should consider it in the context of the Bible as a whole. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that ALL scripture is the word of God for our training, teaching, reproof and correction.” And I tell you that not only each passage can stand on its own, but each phrase and even each word can too. So with that in mind, can there be a distinction between a wise man and a man of knowledge under God?

A wise man is a man of wisdom. Under God, wisdom includes discerning what is good and what is evil and choosing that which is good. A man of knowledge can be either a good man or a man of evil. For a man of knowledge, knowledge only serves to strengthen himself, no matter if he strives to be good or evil. Good and evil are not in the equation if we’re merely talking about knowledge.
Under God, then, a wise man might use a man of knowledge to the extent of the other’s knowledge in pursuit of righteousness. Some may say that God uses Satan in His Plans in the context of Romans 8:28. But a man of knowledge who is evil will find it difficult, if not impossible, to use a wise man for his own purposes, unless God lets him as He did with Satan in the Book of Job.

If you are wise, you would be friends with someone whom in your wisdom you can trust. Under God, we trust those who pursue righteousness. Romans 12:9 says to avoid what is evil and hold fast to what is good. Proverbs 13:20 says “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Going back to Facebook, would you be considered as being high in stature if you had thousands of “friends”? That depends on who those friends are, in terms of good and evil. Proverbs 18:24 says, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” When I first joined Facebook years ago, I became “friends” with others I didn’t know beforehand. I managed to have thousands of such “friends.” During the time I was on Facebook with these “friends,” I found out that some of those were trolling my real friends, to the point where some of my real friends unfriended me. I certainly wasn’t wise enough to envision that as an outcome of my efforts.

I left Facebook for a time some years ago and I recently came back when it seemed, for now, that Facebook is taking measures to provide an experience that is more secure. This time I’ve generally been only friending those I’ve known beforehand, as well as friends of friends I know. I believe I acquired some wisdom, in that when I received a friend request from someone I didn’t know, who has almost 5,000 friends, which is the limit on Facebook, and perhaps some of them could be trolling other “friends’ for all I know, I rejected the friend request. And granted that the more “friends” a person has, the more valuable the person is for Facebook’s advertisers.

But is it worth it to have many friends for the sake of Facebook’s advertisers? For now, I’m treating Facebook as I would a man of knowledge, making use of what Facebook knows. But however Facebook may have turned to God, I’ve put aside the idea of treating Facebook as a man of wisdom until it is secure enough that the evil that may be in it has no influence on those I really consider, and may consider, to be my friends.

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