An evangelical, mega-church pastor made the following statement, “…our discipleship model is not based around a series of (Bible) classes, Christianity 101, 201, 301, 401…because we think spiritual maturity is NOT based on knowledge, it is based on application…because knowledge puffs up (makes us self-important) but love builds up”.

He goes on to add, “a little bit of application (or doing service) is better than a lot of knowledge”. In other words, doing is always better than knowing. As a result of this philosophy, in this pastor’s churches there are no organized Bible studies, indeed they are not even allowed.

But nowhere in scripture is Biblical ignorance considered a virtue, indeed it is roundly condemned. There are a zillion references to this but perhaps most famously, when Paul is about to die and he is writing his very last letter to his spiritual protégé Timothy, he exhorts him to, “study to show yourself approved of God, a worker that needs not be ashamed, rightly handling God’s word”.

As we note in the video series it was never meant to be knowledge OR love, it was always knowledge AND love. Leaving one out causes just as many issues as leaving the other out.

In session 7 of the video series we make the case that today’s Bible may or may not be inerrant but it truly and dependably represents God’s thoughts as he chose to make them known to us. God’s word is his instruction book, his love letter, his assurance that we can know everything he thinks it is important for us to know.

If that is indeed the case, I would encourage each of you to consider what it means if we take those instructions God thought important enough to give to us and preserve for us across the millenia, and choose to ignore them.

In those preserved words, obedience is a common measure of love. How can we be obedient to something we are unfamiliar with?

Don’t just read it, but study it, discuss it with other people, and use it as THE measuring stick for your life. It is really important and useful to expose yourself to gospel preachers but remember, their words are only useful so long as they line up with what is taught in Scripture.