The last two days posts have dealt with basic and intermediate Bible knowledge. But WHY deal with such things? Isn’t it enough just to know you’re saved and you won’t go to hell when you die? After all… why worry about things like imputation… baptism… the dual nature of Christ… and all that other stuff?
Update 10/15/2010: According to a study released last month by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of general religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions. Of the 32 religious knowledge questions, the average number of correct answers was 16. Atheists and agnostics averaged 20.9 correct answers, Jews averaged 20.5 correct answers and Mormons averaged 20.3 correct answers. Catholics answered an average of 14.7 questions correctly and Protestants, as a whole, gave an average of 16 correct answers. Of the 12 questions dealing with Christianity, Mormons answered an average of 7.9 correctly and evangelical Christians answered an average of 7.3 correctly.
Well… there are several more very good reasons. If you have time, I’ll suggest a few… in no particular order.
It is for God’s glory and our good that we know as much about Him as possible. After all… don’t we want to know everything there is to know about people we love on earth? Doesn’t it amaze you how much some people know about their favorite sports team… their job… their hobbies (Golf, cooking, crafts, fishing, etc), but know little about the God who saved them?
Unless we know the truth about God and His Word, we are in danger of being led astray by heretics who use the Bible, but in a way that isn’t proper or right. There are people Satan uses to cause others to stumble, and the way they do it is by misusing the Scriptures.
How are we going to disciple others, as we are commanded to, unless we know God’s truth?
How are we going to help those who are going astray to return unless we recognize truth from error?
Through the Bible God speaks to His people, strengthening… encouraging… leading… and protecting them. Who in their right mind would ignore what is given for our good?
Knowing God’s Word is THE key to defeating temptation and Satan. It could be that so many Christians fail in their walk because they don’t have God’s Word abiding in their heart!
If we are not conversant, mature, and growing in our knowledge of Biblical truth… then we are in danger of believing lies and heresy. Then we end up affirming others without a genuine faith as having a genuine faith rather than patiently and humbly opposing error (Glen Beck, Barack Obama, etc). If/when we accept error as truth, then we ourselves are at best wandering in the desert. Worse, we end up leading others away from God/Christ ourselves, which carries eternal consequences. Then, worst of all, God Himself is portrayed in a manner that isn’t consistent with how He is depicted in Scripture.