Biblical Literacy

Four posts ago, we talked about Biblical Illiteracy. Today is the other side of the coin. There may be some overlap, but in “illiteracy” we saw that it was self-inflicted due to lack of study, lack of desire, and lack of love for the Father. Today, we’ll define “literacy” as knowing the difference between right and wrong, based, not on man’s opinions or so-called worldly knowledge, but solely on God’s Word.

Standards are the bedrock of society.

There are socially acceptable standards (though not acceptable to all). There is the expectation of product consistency (that’s why a Big Mac tastes the same in Phoenix, Paris, or Prague). There’s even a government department (Commerce) responsible for weights and measures. And we need standards. Otherwise chaos would rule.

But all these standards are subject to change; some, it seems, are changing before our eyes as society slips further into the darkness of greed, sexual perversion, and self-centeredness. For comparison, look back just 70 years or less to the 50s and 60s. If JFK were alive today, he’d be considered conservative. If we, as a society, were all following the same standards, we wouldn’t have the political divide we have. We’d know that guns don’t kill people, people do. We’d know that unborn babies are people too. We’d have national pride in our flag, our freedoms, our rule of law. But, alas, that ship has sailed. We will never go back. It’s the second law of thermodynamics: the state of entropy (lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder) is irreversible and will always increase (get worse) over time.

So, do we throw up our hands

and surrender to it? If it feels good, do it? That seems to be where we are heading. And apart from Divine intervention, as Barry McGuire sang (1965), “we’re on the eve of destruction.” It may already be too late. Our God is patient and merciful. But He has set an expiration date at which time, He’ll call an end to His waiting and judgment will begin.

This is a wakeup call to those of us who know God and call Jesus Lord. Here are a couple verses to ponder:

Prov. 12:2 “A good man will obtain favor from the Lord, but He will condemn a man who devises evil.”

Isa. 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil…”

Heb. 5:14 “… the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

3 John 1:11 “The one who does good is of God, the one who does evil has not seen God.”

If we are mature in the Lord,

and spend time in God’s Word, we should be able to discern good and evil. That’s a benefit that unbelievers don’t have. They follow their feelings, which can lie to them, instead of God’s Word which NEVER lies. We are equipped and armed by the very Spirit of God who wrote the Bible for us to read, study, and understand so that we would be prepared for the battle He knew was coming.

We can see the deterioration of society, the fear that is driving our reactions, and the desperate cry of those seeking answers as to what is going on. Brothers and sisters, we have THE answer: faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We just need the compassion for lost souls to share it. The Bible says, “…to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin (Jas.4:17).” And, “…he who is wise wins souls (Prov. 11:30).

We’re equipped with the “sword,”

we’re wise, the “fields are white for harvest” (John 4:35), and Jesus is coming back soon. My question is simply this, do we want to be those of whom Jesus said, “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes (Luke 12:43)”?