'...if we pursue theological truth for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited. The very greatness of the subject-matter will intoxicate us, and we shall come to think of ourselves as a cut above other Christians because of our interest in it and grasp of it; and we shall look down on those whose theological ideas seem to us crude and inadequate, and dismiss them as very poor specimens. For, as Paul told the conceited Corinthians, "knowledge puffs up...the man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know" (I Cor.8: If.). To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it.'
JI Packer, Knowing God, p.20.
