Knowledge

Here's a question that after reading JD's blog came to my mind, why do we try to obtain knowledge and more specifically biblical knowledge? Hmmm.....let's think about this one. Why do I usually try to obtain knowledge? The answer that most people have is to further oneself in life and to prosper until success. Mainly when I think about obtaining knowledge I think about school. The reason that I attend school is so that I can get a good education, so that I can get a good job, so that I can make a good living, so that I can provide for a family. Catching on yet? The one thing that continues to come up in the previous statements is "I." The reason I try to obtain knowledge is for my own benefit. I do it for my own success and for the future success of my own family. The reason I'm going to school is because God has given me the gift of life and the opportunity to glorify his name by being a good student and studying so that I can further his name. I am studying so that I can do the job that he has prepared for me to do. Ok that's all good but what about biblical knowledge? So why is it that we read the Bible and study it? For the most part it is for our own selves, for our own benefit. Mainly we want biblical knowledge so that we can answer the questions that others will ask us. Here's what JD had to say about this, "Many don't seem to realize that the point of the Book is not the Book itself but the Author. What I am denying is not that that comes from too much emphasis on the Book; rather, it comes from the wrong type of emphasis on the Book. If you read the Bible as a source of doctrinal knowledge rather than as a manual for knowing and loving Jesus, you are reading it wrongly. Repent and read it again, this time with God as your goal and not the increase of your own, vain knowledge quotient as the goal." WOW!!! We desire and long to have biblical knowledge so that we can come to know God and that should be the sole purpose of our wanting to gain any type of knowledge. Knowledge is given to us from God for he is Truth and if we want anything other than to know him more then knowledge has become an idol. Why do you want knowledge?