I remember watching the TV show "Cheers" in its heyday. Cliff Clavin always struck me as a fascinating kind of person, mostly because I actually know several "Cliff Clavin's" in my life. You know the kind. People who know things that astound you, but the things they know actually serve no purpose other than to dazzle you with how many meaningless things that they know.
Over the years, I've also been amazed at how many facts people can know about the Bible, its history, and its content, and yet completely miss the main point of it all. And this brings me to the heart of today's blog post. One of the reasons that we study the Scriptures is because we want to know the things of God more and better. Knowledge of who God is, of what He has done, of what He continues to do, and of who we are is an important thing.
So we encounter God's Word to grow in our knowledge. However, even as I say that, one of the things we must have pointed out to us is that knowledge alone is insufficient. To paraphrase a verse in the Bible, even the demons "know" about God and who He is and what He has done, but that knowledge isn't gaining anything for them. Merely knowing what God has done is insufficient for what God intends to do through His Word.
That's one side of the coin. Knowledge merely for knowledge's sake isn't really that much gain, especially since the central key to the Bible is Jesus, and what He has done, and, as the last post mentioned, to guide us to belief in what He has done for us. However, we can be found in Christ Jesus through faith, and yet still have a warped intent on gaining knowledge from the Bible.
A believer who encounters the Bible to know more about the things of God is commendable. A believer who doesn't take that knowledge and "do" anything with it, though, falls far short of God's intent for the Scriptures. Yes, God wants us to know more about Him as He reveals Himself. Yes, He wants us to know what He has done. Yes, He wants us to know how He has acted.
But God doesn't intend for such knowledge to merely serve the function of expanding the brain of the one who reads. One of the reasons for reading the Bible that we will address is that of making God known to others. If we study the Bible only for our own personal edification, in a sense, we still fail some of the purpose of the Word. Yes, we need to know about God so that we can share it with others. And perhaps that right there is the key. We approach the Word to know, with the intent that the knowledge is not merely for our edification, but for the building up of the community of faith.
Over the years, I've also been amazed at how many facts people can know about the Bible, its history, and its content, and yet completely miss the main point of it all. And this brings me to the heart of today's blog post. One of the reasons that we study the Scriptures is because we want to know the things of God more and better. Knowledge of who God is, of what He has done, of what He continues to do, and of who we are is an important thing.
So we encounter God's Word to grow in our knowledge. However, even as I say that, one of the things we must have pointed out to us is that knowledge alone is insufficient. To paraphrase a verse in the Bible, even the demons "know" about God and who He is and what He has done, but that knowledge isn't gaining anything for them. Merely knowing what God has done is insufficient for what God intends to do through His Word.
That's one side of the coin. Knowledge merely for knowledge's sake isn't really that much gain, especially since the central key to the Bible is Jesus, and what He has done, and, as the last post mentioned, to guide us to belief in what He has done for us. However, we can be found in Christ Jesus through faith, and yet still have a warped intent on gaining knowledge from the Bible.
A believer who encounters the Bible to know more about the things of God is commendable. A believer who doesn't take that knowledge and "do" anything with it, though, falls far short of God's intent for the Scriptures. Yes, God wants us to know more about Him as He reveals Himself. Yes, He wants us to know what He has done. Yes, He wants us to know how He has acted.
But God doesn't intend for such knowledge to merely serve the function of expanding the brain of the one who reads. One of the reasons for reading the Bible that we will address is that of making God known to others. If we study the Bible only for our own personal edification, in a sense, we still fail some of the purpose of the Word. Yes, we need to know about God so that we can share it with others. And perhaps that right there is the key. We approach the Word to know, with the intent that the knowledge is not merely for our edification, but for the building up of the community of faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment