Words of knowledge (WoK) are a simple form of revelatory gift: the Lord shows you a fact. A WoK is something that is objectively true (or can be proven false). This is in contrast to prophecy, which declares what is not yet in existence in the material world.
For example, if I receive a WoK that someone is a nurse, I should be able to ask them if they are a nurse.
If they say they are a nurse, then the WoK was accurate.
If they say they are not a nurse, nor in nursing school or in any position that could be interpreted as being a nurse, then I did not get an accurate word of knowledge.
I may have received a prophetic word regarding some calling toward caring for others or even becoming a nurse later, but it is not a word of knowledge.
Words of knowledge may seem kind of useless: why would it help anybody to have me know something about them that they already know? But the basic use of words of knowledge is that they show people that God sees them. Sometimes being seen is the goal, but sometimes it is to highlight a specific thing that God wants to touch. Let’s look at two examples.
In this example, I got a word of knowledge through a picture. In the picture, I saw the woman I was praying for as a child and she was being yelled at by an older woman for not doing well enough, despite having tried. When I shared this picture with the woman, she said that was something that happened when she was a young woman in church. This opened up a time in which we could pray for this woman’s healing from spiritual abuse and the condemnation that followed her from that time.
I was in a church meeting during which we were praying for healing and got a word in my mind: “scoliosis.” As soon as I shared this word, a young woman who suffered from scoliosis was healed from the condition; her back was straightened and all her pain left. I did not even pray for her, the Lord just healed her when the word was released.
So the value in words of knowledge is to direct our attention where God wants us to look.