Knowledge helps us orient ourselves in the world. As our brain stores information from our experiences our spirits and souls interpret it to help us avoid future pain and suffering and benefit ourselves and those around us.
Understanding facts about our world is certainly a type of knowledge, but there are simply too many facts to consider; in order to properly navigate complex circumstances, we must focus our attention and prioritize some facts above others. What we attend to depends on what we value, and this is driven by our moral frame of reference: our world view or story.
So, there’s a certain kind of knowledge which provides a foundation for all other knowledge; it forms the basis of our world view and dismisses facts which seem irrelevant or uninteresting. So, getting our world view wrong corrupts our minds and hearts, literally blinding us such that the facts we think we know don’t enable us to properly engage reality.
The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge (Pr 1:7); it is the first, foremost, chief or primary type of knowledge. Acknowledging and respecting Who God is, what He is like, and submitting to what He requires is the only point of view which makes sense of the world and rightly aligns us with reality. This is the essence of both wisdom and understanding. (Pr 9:10) Failing to choose the fear of God is equivalent to hating knowledge itself. (Pr 1:29)
The fear of Jehovah is to hate evil (Pr 8:13a), to despise the slightest tendency to turn away from God, to fail to love and obey Him with our whole heart. This is, of course, exceptionally rare (Ro 3:18); very few are able to find it. (Mt 7:14)
Consequently, we live in an age overwhelmed with information, and people filled with false hope in having instant access to whatever they like. But without a suitable foundation we build on the sand (Mt 7:26), grounding our world view in our own pride and arrogance. (Pr 8:13b) It will not deliver in the evil day. (Mt 7:27)