After reading this week’s devotional, post your personal thoughts on what the Devotional means to you and how you find it applicable in your study right now.

• Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body (Ecclesiastes 12:12)
• We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know (1 Corinthians 8:1-2)
• If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2)

As you see from the verses above, building knowledge and doing research is nothing without love. When researchers have a love and compassion for the object of study, the research will be acknowledged by God.

On the other hand, the way in which love can become deeper and richer is to have a lot of knowledge about the object. If you know more, you will love more.

• Your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ–to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:9-11).

We do research to better understand, and so we love more and serve better. I pray that you begin your research project with the love of your students, fellow teachers, staffs, schools or communities and the desire to serve them better, and at the same time I also pray that your love become deeper as you build more knowledge and understanding throughout the project.

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The implication of what we saw in chapter 12 is that all thinking-all learning, all education, all schooling, formal or informal, simple or sophisticated-exists for the love of God and the love of man. It exists to help us know God more so that we may treasure him more. It exists to bring as much good to other people as we can-especially the external good of enjoying God through Christ. …… We love God more fully when we see his glory more fully. Than glory is revealed supremely in Jesus Christ and the history of redemption recorded in the Bible. But his glory is also revealed in all that he has made (Ps. 19:1; Rom. 1:19-21). And that revelation through nature includes the revelation of Jesus Christ, because “all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). That was spoken of the Son of God, who in the fullness of time “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). (Piper, 2010, p.167-168)

Piper J. (2010). Think: The life of the mind and the love of God. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.