Real Knowledge

Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus. (2 Timothy 2:14-17 ESV). The prince of Grenada, an heir to the Spanish crown, was sentenced to life in solitary confinement in Madrid's ancient prison called "The Place of the Skull." The fearful, dirty, and dreary nature of the place earned it the name. Everyone knew that once you were in, you would never come out alive. The prince was given one book to read the entire time--the Bible. With only one book to read, he read it over hundreds and hundreds of times. The book became his constant companion. After thirty-three years of imprisonment, he died. When they came in to clean out his cell, they found some notes he had written using nails to mark the soft stone of the prison walls. The notations were of this sort: Psalm 118:8 is the middle verse of the Bible; Ezra 7:21 contains all the letters of the alphabet except the letter j; the ninth verse of the eighth chapter of Esther is the longest verse in the Bible, no word or name of more than six syllables can be found in the Bible. When Scot Udell originally noted these facts in an article in Psychology Today, he noted the oddity of an individual who spent thirty-three years of his life studying what some have described as the greatest book of all time yet could only glean trivia. From all we know, he never made any religious or spiritual commitment to Christ, but he became an expert at Bible trivia. There's a difference between knowing facts about God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible, and allowing God to change you from the inside out. Many people grow up knowing a lot about Christianity but never have entrusted their lives to Christ. They don’t possess real knowledge. In an article written sometime ago, Chuck Swindoll listed the following six reasons why it is important to pursue real knowledge of the Scriptures: it gives substance to faith, stabilizes us during times of testing, enables us to handle the Word of God accurately, equips us to detect and confront error, makes us confident and consistent in our walk with God, and filters out our fears and superstitions. Isn’t it time for you to have such real knowledge? Don’t just read the Scripture, accept the truth of it and apply it to your life. It will be the beginning of changes that will make a great impact on your peace and happiness.