These articles are never posted off the cuff. I keep about 20 on hand, especially for those weeks that are busy with appointments or company or special events. In the past two months I have written seventeen about faith, and yes, they are all different, coming at the subject from several different ways.
What is my secret? I studied. Last summer I wrote our women’s Bible class material on the subject of faith and in the process looked up every passage in the Bible that contained the word. Now here is another fact for you—I wrote those 17 articles after teaching only five of the eighteen lessons, so I imagine many more will follow.
If you are going to write about something, you have to know something to write about. I am not special. I studied for hours. Now, before I teach these lessons, I study even more hours, and learn yet more. It isn’t fast and it isn’t easy, but it does work.
How can you have knowledge of the Word of God? The same way. It doesn’t come from sitting in a pew listening. It comes from your own direct contact with the scriptures, day after day, hour after hour. It comes from reading on a daily basis, in some sort of organized fashion, not just hit or miss, and it comes from meditating on what you have read—really thinking about it and what it means in light of what you read yesterday or studied last week—not from memory, but from the notes you made at the time.
Why should you want that knowledge?
Desire for knowledge is a sign of faith, Psa 119:66.
Desire for knowledge is a sign of wisdom, Prov 1:22,29; 15:14; 18:15.
Knowledge is power, Prov 24:5.
Knowledge is more valuable than wealth, Prov 8:10.
A lack of knowledge will destroy you, Hos 4:6.
I found all those passages in just five minutes. You could too. Why is it we don’t have this knowledge? I could list passage after passage in the proverbs about laziness, but I don’t really think that’s it. I think it has more to do with misplaced priorities and complacency.
But look at that list again. Think about the opposites: a lack of knowledge is foolish, faithless, and weak. Does that describe you? It does if you don’t study.
This post is a short one on knowledge. Are you short on knowledge too? Then do something about it.
And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 2 Peter 1:19
Dene Ward