A Zeal not According to Knowledge by Dudley Marvin Canright

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 9, 1872

A Zeal not According to Knowledge.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THE blind Jews who rejected Christ manifested a great zeal for God, as they supposed, by persecuting the followers of Jesus. Of them Paul said: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” Rom. 10: 2. I frequently see illustrations of this kind of zeal now. I will give one or two:

A man in Osceola, Iowa, embraced the present truth. After observing the Sabbath for several weeks, he went out one Sunday morning and threw his wood over the fence into his yard. A neighbor, seeing this, became very indignant at such a violation of the holy Sunday. To show his great zeal for the Lord and his law, he loudly declared that the next day he would certainly prosecute his neighbor for working on Sunday. To confirm this, he swore to it with many profane oaths and curses! (He is a member of the M. E. Church, too.) Now for whom was all this great zeal? For the truth? for the right? for God? or for his honor? No; the fact that he could blaspheme his Maker’s name so irreverently, shows that he did not care for him. No; it was simply a blind, bigoted zeal, without knowledge, for one of his own pet human traditions.

Take another case: One year ago some twenty or more members of the Christian church in Peru, Iowa, saw the truth, and conscientiously came out to keep the Sabbath. Immediately, without any trial, they were all turned out of the church. The burning zeal of the other members of that church would not allow them for a moment to tolerate such profane, wicked persons in their church! But at the very same time they had members in the church who would swear, fight, play cards, dance, &c. What did they do with these? Turn them out? No, indeed; they are still members of that church! What, then, was their zeal for? Not for God and his holy law, certainly, but for their own traditions.

How often I have seen cases like this: A man living in an unconverted or backslidden condition is never visited by the minister, nor any effort made for his soul’s salvation. He becomes interested in the present truth, and is about deciding to keep God’s commandments and become a Christian. Now, all at once, the minister has a special interest for him and visits him, prays for him, &c. What is all this for? Love for his soul? Why, then, not go before? Zeal for the Lord? Why not show it before? Fear that he will be led away from the Lord? He was far away by wicked works before. No, it is simply a bigoted, selfish zeal for his own theories—a zeal not according to knowledge.

D. M. CANRIGHT.