How We Act on What We Know

Why do people plead insanity? Think about a court case where someone is tried for something horrible like murder and they plead insanity. Why do people do that? Well, maybe because they are insane, but implicit in everyone’s understanding is the knowledge that we are responsible not just for what we do but for what we know.

The thinking is that if I was drunk or insane, then I didn’t know what I was doing and am not responsible. We can argue that for sure, but thousands of years ago, Aristotle basically posited that if a person is drunk and commits some crime, he is still guilty. He is guilty for getting drunk and then wasn’t capable of determining where that would go. So, none of us know what is a big deal or a small deal. We need to do the right thing in the small things or we might end up in a bad place. We are responsible not just for what we do, but for what we know and how we act on what we know.

In I Samuel 22 David is fleeing for his life from a very jealous King Saul who was out to get him. He stops by and receives both food and a sword, Goliath’s sword, from the priest Ahimelech. Then he goes on. Saul catches wind of this and accuses Ahimelech of aiding and abetting an enemy, someone who is conspiring against him. In verse 15 the priest responds by saying, “Did I then begin to inquire of God for him?” He is saying, “Was I asking God’s counsel? Was I giving aid to an enemy? I didn’t know he was an enemy.” The verse continues, “Be it far from me: let not the king impute any thing unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father: for thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more.”

Notice the word impute. In other words, Saul charged Ahimelech with an offense that was not merited. We are all responsible for how we act and what we know, and sometimes we tell something we don’t know. That is what Saul did. He told something he did not know. He assumed or imputed malice and evil to a man who was completely innocent. In short, Saul was saying, “What you did was wrong. You helped an enemy and you knew what you were doing.” The priest said, “I know nothing.” In verse 17 Saul says, “Because they knew” He is imputing something to the priest that did not carry and he had him and the other priests executed.

Why did he do this? He was paranoid. In verse 8 Saul basically said, “You conspired. You made a league with my enemy and did not feel sorry for me. Everything is against me.” Saul’s problem was he was thinking only of self. When I am thinking only of self, it affects my thinking on others. I cannot think right on others if all I am doing is thinking about myself or if I am thinking about myself in the wrong way. It is worse to know something that isn’t so than to know nothing and know you know nothing.

Sometimes I get in trouble because I attribute, impute, or put on someone’s account something that really doesn’t belong there. I don’t know hearts, yet often I look at the evidence and what I see is all there is and all I know is what I can see, so I think, “From what I can see I know what they are thinking. I know what is happening and what they are doing.” Well, no you don’t. You are imputing to someone something that doesn’t belong. You are telling something you don’t know. We are all responsible for how we act on what we know.

David was guilty of the opposite. He was guilty of knowing something he didn’t tell. In verse 22 after Saul had killed Ahimelech and the priests, David’s said to Abiathar, Ahimelech’s son, “I knew it that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul: I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father’s house.” Saul imputed wrong where it didn’t belong. David occasioned evil where it didn’t belong. When David went to the priest and knew it was going to end badly, he made an occasion for something that was bad. He knew something he did not tell.

Sometimes it is hard to know when we know something and when we don’t, when we should say something and when we should not. For some people a secret burns a hole in their pocket like a match or a five-dollar bill. They have got to give it to someone. It is very rare someone can know something and not tell everyone, but there are occasions when we know something and are responsible to tell someone. Do you tell everyone everything all the time? Do you assume things that are not true?

The bottom line is that I don’t know. Sometimes I think I know things I don’t know and sometimes I know things that I should act on and I don’t. Sometimes I tell something I don’t know and sometimes I know something I don’t tell. Both Saul and David were wrong. Saul imputed evil; David occasioned evil. For both of them it was a matter of knowing how to act on what they knew.

Sometimes we just don’t know. That means we need to pray for discernment, courage, and sympathy every day. We have sympathy for ourselves and confidence in our own perspective, but that can be wrong. We need to have sympathy for other people and vigilance with ourselves. God will give discernment if you will be self-aware enough to know that you are not, that you don’t know what you don’t know, and that sometimes you do know things you need to know what to do with it.

We don’t know. God will give us the discernment, courage, and sympathy we need to do what we should with what we know because we are responsible for how we act on what we know.