THE COST OF IGNORANCE

Ignorance simply means having a lack of information, or a lack of knowledge. It is different from stupidity which is a lack of intelligence and different from foolishness which is a lack of wisdom.

They say "Knowledge is power,” Unfortunately, some people, knowing this, try to keep the knowledge to themselves (as a strategy of obtaining an unfair advantage), and hinder others from obtaining knowledge. Especially corrupt quotas of leadership and Governments.

It is important to determine what information is missing in different communities and share information. Not every information is important for everyone though. Some information is not important to the situation. For example, It will not help a farmer to know that the Prince of England is single or had a wedding, but it would be more useful to know which kind of seed would survive in the local soil, and which would not.

To deal with extrinsic causes of ignorance there must be the transfer of information. This is unlike a general education which is equally important in finishing ignorance. Transfer of information leads to strengthening the capacity of the people while General education leads to general enlightenment.

The most dangerous cause of ignorance is, however, the intrinsic cause that is well tackled in the book of proverbs.

Proverbs 13:18 “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: but he that regardeth reproof shall be honored.”

The cost of ignorance

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

Ignorance has a terribly high price tag—but understanding and overcoming it can really pay off. When people hear the word ignorance, there are many ideas that come to mind; stupidity, lack of care, just a fun word to use as an insult, etc.

Many people don’t give much thought as to what it means. According to Webster’s Dictionary, ignorance is either “a lack of experience or knowledge” or “the state of being uninformed.”

This means therefore, we are ignorant from birth. It is only as we go through life, go to school and travel around to learn about the world and her functionality that we overcome ignorance. There are however some things we still remain ignorant about. In life, learning is continuous in order to destroy ignorance.

Ignorance makes you not see opportunities

Being ignorant of the resources and wealth that you are sitting on, or the wealth around you will lead to poverty. Lacking the basic knowledge or any insight to recognize, appreciate, or tap into the rich resources leads to poverty especially in Africa.

This is the reason other nations have resulted in exploitation who comes along and can spot or discover our wealth, and plunder it in our ignorance. They even blind us by using a fraction of our own wealth to “give grants” to us. They fool African nations to turn completely away from trying to discover and optimize their own potential and riches.

Jim Rohn said, “Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is poverty. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance is a tragedy. And ignorance is an illness. It all stems from ignorance.”

The greatest ignorance of a believer

The greatest ignorance of a believer is when God’s principles are ignored. That is when innocent ignorance transforms into sin. Ignorance by itself is not a sin, but actions out of ignorance are sin.

Acts 17:30 “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.”

All of us have sinned in ignorance and suffered the consequences even if we didn’t know. We’ve all done or failed to do something that we didn’t realize was a sin until later. Maybe it was a lack of understanding of benefits of tithing and offering that suffered you being broke, we broke God’s principle of seed and harvest.

Sin is breaking God’s law whether knowingly or unknowingly.

1 John 3:4-6 (NIV) “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

The only time you can stop sinning is when you know; Know Him, and know why he came. Some may argue that they didn’t know and so they feel justified, however, a crime is a crime, whether the person knew better or not.

In Acts 3, the apostle Peter was preaching to a crowd in Jerusalem about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and repentance. He told them about Christ’s sacrifice saying,

“Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers” (verse 17). We all are responsible for crucifying Christ because we all have sinned (Romans 3:23). Peter told them to “repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).

They still had to repent of the sin, even though they did it in ignorance.

The remedy of ignorance is knowledge.

Geoffrey Kilonzo.