SLICE IT ANY WAY YOU WISH, ignorance is not bliss. Dress it in whatever garb you please, ignorance is not attractive. Neither is it the mark of humility nor the path to spirituality. It certainly is not the companion of wisdom. On the contrary, it is the breeding ground for fear, prejudice, and superstition . . . the feeding trough for unthinking animals . . . the training field for slaves. Yet it remains the favorite plea of the guilty, the excuse of the lazy, even the Christian's rationalization for immaturity.
Let's not fall into that trap! Our spiritual fathers didn't. Trace your way back to Moses and you'll find that the people were given the Truth of God in written form that they might know and that their children might know the right path to follow. In Samuel's day, a school of the prophets was established to dispel ignorance among the people. This philosophy carried into the New Testament as Jesus frequently rebuked His listeners for not reading, for not knowing the underlying principles for living. How often Paul repeated similar convictions with such strong words as, "I would not have you to be ignorant" (1 Thessalonians 4:13, KJV).
Dr. Luke expressed this principle in his history of the early church:
The believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul's message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. As a result, many Jews believed, as did many of the prominent Greek women and men.
What power there is in pursuing biblical knowledge through searching the Scriptures. Are you searching the Scriptures each day? Are you filling your mind and your heart with the things of God by seeking Him in His Word? You cannot make a worthier investment. Those first-century Bereans determined if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth as they listened to the teaching then turned to the Scriptures to compare what they heard with what they read. Where do you go to check what you're being told?
Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord . . . Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved. The full devotional can be purchased at tyndale.com or wherever books are sold.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
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