Every congregation has him. Sometimes it is her. The retired contractor who can look at a crack and tell you whether it matters. The woman at the credit union who understands mortgages. The deacon who has been through three land disputes and knows exactly how the titles office works. The young man who wires houses on weekends.
These people are a gift. They are also, occasionally, a trial. Because knowledge about houses, like any knowledge, can be used in two very different ways.
Two ways to look at a crack
Picture a young couple who have just bought an older house. They are proud and nervous. After service one Sunday they mention it to the church’s resident builder, and he offers to take a look.
In the first version of this story, he walks around the house shaking his head. “Who did this plastering? You paid how much? You didn’t get an engineer? I would never have bought this.” He is not exactly wrong about anything. But the couple are left feeling foolish, anxious and slightly ashamed, and they are no clearer about what to do next.
In the second version, he walks around just as carefully and notices just as much. But he says, “The bones are good. This crack here is old and it’s not moving; I’d just fill it and watch it. This one I’d get looked at before the rains. The roof has maybe five good years left, so start putting a little aside. And whoever did this kitchen did a nice job.” The couple leave with a plan, and with their dignity intact.
The knowledge is the same. The purpose is different.
Gifts are for building
Paul spends 1 Corinthians 12 describing the church as a body in which every member has been given something. He was mainly speaking about spiritual gifts, but the principle carries into the practical skills people bring. Then, at the end of the chapter, he says: “And yet I show you a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31, NKJV). What follows is the famous chapter on love.
It is worth remembering why that chapter is there. The Corinthian church was gifted and proud of it. People were using their abilities to rank themselves above others. Paul’s answer was not to stop using gifts, but to use them in love. “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies,” he had written a few chapters earlier (1 Corinthians 8:1). To edify literally means to build up, the language of construction.
A person who knows about houses is well placed to understand that picture. Building up is slow, careful work, done from the foundation. It is not the same as pointing out every flaw in someone else’s structure.
Where property knowledge can wound
Property is an area where it is especially easy to make people feel small, because it touches money, family and status all at once. Some familiar ways this happens:
- Asking what someone paid, then telling them it was too much.
- Using technical words without explaining them, so the other person feels ignorant.
- Telling the story of your own successful build as a lesson to someone who is struggling with theirs.
- Offering help and then taking over, so it becomes your project rather than theirs.
- Mentioning someone’s mistakes to others, even in the form of a prayer request.
What building up looks like
On the other hand, a knowledgeable person who wants to build others up has many opportunities:
- Explaining rather than impressing. Walking a first-time buyer through what a sale agreement usually contains, in plain language.
- Starting with what is good. Most houses, and most decisions, have something sound in them. Naming it first makes hard advice easier to hear.
- Knowing your limits. Saying “I’m not an engineer, get this checked properly” is a mark of wisdom, not weakness.
- Teaching the skill. Showing a young man how to replace a tap washer so he does not have to call you next time.
- Keeping confidences. Someone who shows you their mortgage statement or their leaking roof is trusting you. Honour that.
For the ones receiving help
There is a word here, too, for those of us on the other side. Pride can stop us asking. We would rather make an expensive mistake than admit to the builder in the next pew that we do not understand what a ring beam is. But the body Paul describes is one where every part needs the others. Accepting help graciously is part of love as well.
A quieter kind of excellence
The most admired people in a community are not always the ones who know the most. Often they are the ones who make others feel capable. The retired mason whose advice leaves you steadier. The neighbour who helps you read the insurance letter and never mentions it again. They are using real gifts, and using them the way Paul called “a more excellent way”.
If you are the person in your church or street who knows about roofs, or titles, or tenancies, you have been given something worth sharing. The question is simply what people feel when you have finished looking at their house: smaller, or stronger.
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