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For lack of knowledge my people perish12/4/2023 ![]() It doesn’t take much more than a casual reading of either of these verses to realize that, in the words of the fictional character from The Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya, “You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.” Since the warnings of these verses are about death and destruction, it is of the utmost importance that we know what they are really saying. I Don’t Think It Means What You Think It Means This can be used to promote everything from reading and education to selling the latest self-help, self-achievement programs. If a lack of knowledge brings destruction, then the more knowledge, the more power one has to succeed. The second props up the notion that knowledge is power. If you cannot, you will perish (usually taken to mean that you will flounder around in the mundane existence of an average person rather than achieving your full potential). The first is used to bolster the notion that if you can only envision it, or if you can communicate such a vision so that others see it clearly also, then you can achieve anything. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Almost always quoted from the King James Version of Proverbs 29:18, as here.) And, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6) These two platitudes are used to support, and even lend Christian legitimacy, to two leading aspects of our world’s philosophy today. ![]() Two such cliches are similar and often used together. I say, “create them,” despite the fact that we are quoting from something written long ago, because we use them with an entirely different meaning than what was intended long ago. My observations tell me that Christians are often no different. We love snappy sayings and enduring epigrams.
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