There is a well known saying that, ”it isn’t what you know, but who you know, that is important.” Let’s analyze this and see what scriptural lessons we can draw from it.

We might decide that we could improve on the saying by changing it to say, ”It isn’t what you know, but what you do with what you know, that is important.” This is true. There are a lot of people who know a great many things but never do anything with what they know. Knowledge is not power unless it is used.

Knowing and not doing can turn out to be a great sin. James tells us that, ”to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Peter adds to this by saying, ”For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”

Knowledge does bring responsibility. When we know what is right, we are duty bound to respond by doing what is right. James again instructs us by saying, ”Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving you own selves.” So we could conclude that the revised saying is absolutely true. ”It isn’t what you know, but what you do with what you know, that is important.”

But let’s go back to the saying that is so well known; ”It isn’t what you know, but who you know, that is important.” This saying is often used in the world to indicate that influence peddling is a way of life in business and government. That is true. However, let us now see if we can apply it in a scriptural way in our relationship to our Heavenly Father.

Do we know, really know, the creator and sustainer of the universe? The Lord Jesus Christ did. He told the scribes and Pharisees, ”Ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his sayings.”

From this we can conclude that there are people who think that they know God but really don’t. What Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees made them so angry that they decided to kill him for saying it. What he said was true and it is still true. Just think how many people there are in the world today who think that they know God and yet they are ignorant of His glorious promises. Paul reminded the Ephesians that at one time they had been ”without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the convenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”

All the people you know who do not know about the promises are described by Paul as being ”strangers from the covenants of promise” and they have no hope and no God. So we can conclude that it is important to know God, what He has said and what He has promised. The ”who you know” in the saying ought to be God Almighty. If we really do ”know him,” then a lot of the ”what you know” upon which the world places so much importance will not be important at all.

Let us decide to know, really know, our Father in heaven. When we do, then the ”what we know” will be the things concerning ”the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.” The wisdom of this world will then be foolishness with us as it is with God. Let us pray that we can truthfully say what the Lord Jesus Christ said, ”I know him and keep his sayings.”