by Denise Harvey

Created on: April 02, 2009

"My people are destroyed for lacked of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, i will also reject you," says the Lord in Hosea 4:6. Christians should have at least basic knowledge of the Bible. I don't believe that as a Christian you should know the Bible completely, through and through. Webster's New Dictionary Of The English Language says that knowledge is understanding gained by experience; range of information. Christians must know enough information from the Bible to be able to live it, explain it and share what we believe.

The Bible is our guide and we choose to live our lives according to it's principles. We must know what the Bible says in order to apply it to our lives. God wants us to be doers of His Word and not just hearers. We can read the Bible from cover to cover and gain a lot of knowledge, and not be able to apply any of it to our lives. The goal for getting knowledge is to be able to do what we have read and learned. The Bible is a book which can be read by anyone. But not anyone can be a doer of it. Only those who have been born again and received a new heart. Only with our new heart or new spirit can we understand the Bible and live it out.

Timothy 2:15 says, "Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be shamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. When we study we gain knowledge of the Bible. As we apply that knowledge, God's approval is on our lives. Studying also helps us to rightly divide the word of truth. Some people study and gain a lot of knowledge but they wrongly divide the word. They don't know how to keep the word in the right context. The more we study and ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding, and He will, then we will never be ashamed of wrongly dividing the word. We Christians, need to know what we believe.

We don't read and gain knowledge just so we can tell what we know. Just knowing what the Bible says, doesn't mean anything. Are we living what we know? That's what pleases God. As Christians, we want to be able to share our faith with others. 1 Peter 3:15 says, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." In order to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks why we believe, what we believe, we must know it according to the Bible. We've heard a lot of things that we thought came from the Bible but didn't. We believed what we heard, not what we read for ourselves.

So, Christians, we don't have to know everything in the Bible. But we should know according to the Bible about, God's love for mankind, why He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross, forgiveness of sins, the importance of the blood of Jesus, Jesus resurrection, who we are now that we are saved, and whose we are. Knowing those foundational truths, will help us, as we continue to study other parts of the Bible.

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