Importance of Studying God’s Word
“The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals.”
― Charles C. Ryrie
It’s hard to say you truly love or believe in something that you do not know. The beauty of being a Christian though is that we believe we have access to one of the greatest treasures known to all of creation at our fingertips, God’s Word, the Holy Bible. In scripture it says, in John 1:1, “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”. Meaning the Word that we hold in our hands that we often take for granted, is God in written form. With understanding of God’s Word, you can get a glimpse of God’s thoughts, His ways, characteristics, and what He would have us to know concerning His interaction with mankind and all of creation.
Most Christians don’t realize the importance of knowing God’s word. Nowadays with so much knowledge readily available, there are so many misconceptions that people are “tossed to and fro” by what sounds most appealing (Eph. 4:14). God calls us to be like the Berean people found in Acts. Even though they were receiving a word from Paul, an Apostle and Disciple of Christ, the Bereans still researched and examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul was saying lined up with the Truth (Acts 17:11).
We are commanded to study God’s Word and to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15), meaning knowing the right ways to dissect the Word to get to “THE Truth”. What I mean is that -contrary to the world’s belief- there are not many truths. There is only one truth and studying to gain the perspective of what God is saying is different than trying to go to scripture to find “YOUR truth.”
Saying you are a Christian, holds a lot of weight. We are called in scripture to be “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor 5:20). If we are ambassadors for Christ, we have to know what He stands for, and what He taught through Scripture, not what we hear others say He taught or what we think He taught. Sadly, most Christians don’t even know what Scripture teaches and don’t go to the Word to find the answers to their questions or help in their decision-making.
The premise is that before you can say you stand for something, you have to know it first.
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
2 Timothy 2:15 KJV
