For every person, the longer a person lives the more knowledge they have a chance to obtain. But what they do with it is what matters. Knowledge is knowledge, but what we do with it makes it true or false.

I’ll start with what I will call false knowledge.

• False knowledge is knowledge, but it has no good purpose.
• False knowledge is knowledge that is prideful in what it knows.
• There is a gift of knowledge but it can become a snare to us. It makes knowledge an end in itself, in order to pass an exam, to get a grade or a degree. It does not lead to any good actions or deeds.
• False knowledge puffs up. In this case he has an impatience with any opposing view or any correction. He enjoys his knowledge. He spends a lot of time reading just for the sake of reading. He may read to gain knowledge about God but not of God.

What is True knowledge?

• True knowledge is having a growing knowledge of the truth.
• True knowledge is to know God. The end of theology (the study of God) is to know God.
• True knowledge is to experience God: to experience His truth, His love, His peace, His joy, His glory and fulness, His holiness.
• To really know God is to love Him, because God is love. Therefore, true knowledge always leads to a love of God.
• True knowledge will produce good character—the character of God.
• True knowledge is experiencing His Spirit. It is praying in the Spirit, which is real communion with God.

Source: My notes and thoughts from the book, The Puritans, by D. M. Lloyd-Jones.