Why is it Important to Read and Know the Bible?

I read a study recently (sorry, can’t find the link) that said a huge number of Christians today don’t know the Bible, nor do they believe it’s important to. This wasn’t surprising for me to read, but even so, it’s still odd for me to hear, for anybody who wants to know God must know the Word of God. It’s like, if you’re going to do something well, like a new phone or something, then you need to research about it, read the instructions or watch a YouTube how to video on it, try it out, tinker with it, ask people about how to use it better, and chances are, you’re always on it. But when it comes to knowing God, a huge number of people who claim to be Christians choose not to know the Bible – they don’t study it, they don’t read about it, nor talk with others about what it says and directs, they’re not always opening it up, etc. And this is a huge reason as to why so many who do call themselves “Christian” don’t actually represent God, argue with those of us who do in matters of the world and preference, and get it all wrong when trying to explain about God’s ways — because they don’t even know God.

In Matthew 22:23-32, Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead (so they’re ‘sad, you see’?). They posed this question: “Moses said, ‘If a man dies without children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother’s name.’ Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children, so his brother married the widow. But the second brother also died, and the third brother married her. This continued with all seven of them. Last of all, the woman also died. So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For all seven were married to her.” Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven. “But now, as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead—haven’t you ever read about this in the Scriptures? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead.”

Maybe the reason the brother is to marry the…wait a minute! If a man dies childless, then his wife is not a widow – The Sadducees called her a widow. According to Deuteronomy 25:5, when brothers live together in the same home, and one marries, yet dies without any sons, his wife shall not marry outside the family to a stranger. Why not? Isn’t the marriage null? Because according to old Israelite tradition, once she’s joined the family, she’s a full-fledged member of the family. So the husband’s brother shall marry her and have children with her. Today, we may see this as her having to now be whored off to the rest of the brothers, but this was not the case with ancient Jewish tradition. Plus, the first born son to them will succeed the dead brother’s name (Adam, son of David, for instance), and this was done so as to keep the deceased brother’s name among Israel, versus being blotted out. But how does this explain the “widow” part? Interestingly enough, only the English versions use the word “widow”. The word used in the Greek Septuagint means “wife”, “woman”, or “spouse”. The word used in Hebrew only means “wife” or “woman”. So nowhere, other than the English translations is the wife of the deceased considered a “widow”.

So going back to the Matthew text, the Sadducees don’t believe in the resurrection. Their argument was that Moses said if a man dies childless, then his brother should marry the wife and raise up their children for the deceased brother. Jesus stops them there saying they don’t know the Bible (Scriptures). Why? Well, first of all, Deuteronomy says “firstborn”, not “children”. Secondly, Deuteronomy 25:5 is not about marriage, but about the woman’s permanency in the family: She won’t be kicked out as a non-virgin (which would otherwise be as a death sentence to her, for nobody else would want her as a wife), she wouldn’t be kicked out because her husband has died, and she’s married into the family lineage.

Deuteronomy 25:5 is also about the lineage of the deceased brother, for otherwise, total destruction of somebody would lead them to be blotted out. But the son shall not be blotted out. Therefore, the firstborn (not all the children born) will be under his name (it may also be about inheritance).

So Jesus rebukes the Sadducees for getting the scriptures wrong, as well as for not knowing God’s power. Understand, the Sadducees were teachers of the Law, so they were supposed to be professionals at everything pertaining to the Law. For them to suggest incorrect information about that which they should know better than anybody, and then to test somebody on such scriptures, deserves rebuke. Also, their whole stance on the scriptures depended on there not being a resurrection, because the way that you know God will reflect the way that you live. But Jesus corrected them there, also with scripture, reminding them of where God said pertaining to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “I AM their God”, not I WAS their God. In other words, they had ascended into heaven, or resurrected from death into life–eternal life.

Today, this is also a great example of people who base their beliefs upon the incorrect interpretation of the scripture. There are 3 mistakes they make in response:

1. They don’t know the Bible;
2. They base their religion/beliefs on their misinterpretation of the Bible;
3. They teach others and argue their wrong beliefs based on their misinterpretation of the Bible.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a good example of this, for they will argue away the Trinity, because they do not believe that Jesus is God. But if you’ll read my study on this, you’ll see that even their Bible teaches that Jesus is in fact God. Yet, somehow, they’ve missed all the verses and passages I’d listed (or just ignored them altogether). Basically, either their theology has to change to match their Bible, or their Bible has to change in order to match their theology, because the two are not in sync.

How sad/empty a religion must be to think/believe that there’s no resurrection and that this is it, and then to argue with another group that speaks of the hope of resurrection! Unfortunately though, many within the Christian Church today don’t know the Bible, either, but just think they know what it says. For instance, I’m amazed at how many people actually believe:

1. That the sentence, “God helps those who help themselves” is from the Bible! It’s not! It’s originally quoted in one of Aesop’s Fables, Greek Mythology, then later again quoted by Benjamin Franklin, and I’m told Rockefeller, also.
2. “Works will get you to Heaven.” Actually, they won’t! And the Bible continues to say this, but many people who claim the name of Christ seem to think they will.
3. Holiness: God continues to tell His people that we are to be Holy, just as He is Holy. Discipleship is a huge part of this, also. But many I’ve spoken with seem to think that God accepts them the way they are and that they can continue living like this now, only difference is that they’re saved (it’s the “Christians aren’t perfect, just saved” mentality). This was also the understanding of the Corinthian church…the “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so” theology. But real Christianity says that “God loves and accepts you where you are, but loves you too much to leave you there.” (theology, not a quote in the Bible). Paul names off examples in 1 Corinthians 6 of types of people who will not make it into Heaven, then says, “And that’s what many of you were!” But there should’ve been a transformation somewhere between the time they accepted Christ and now. But seeing that they’re still behaving as they did when they first repented only shows that they never allowed the Holy Spirit to transform them. They also never matured in their faith.
4. Sin: If everybody understood the severity of sin, then I wonder if they would be more careful about committing it? Do you remember playing those games when we were kids, where we walked on parts of the furniture, but if we stepped on the floor, which was “lava”, it was immediate death? Now imagine if the floor really was lava. That’s sort of like how sin is…the floor was sin. There’s no 2-second rule, there’s no “one step across is OK”, just immediate death due. You can’t walk on lava, you can’t touch it, you can’t even go near it, so you do everything you can to avoid it. If people recognized sin as even more dangerous than lava, I wonder if we’d do better at keeping away from it? We need to see sin as more deadly than lava, because it is.
5. Bible Illiteracy: Apparently, this is also a problem among those who serve in the Church. The sad thing about that is, in my own research, I’ve learned that just about everybody who’s suffering from Bible illiteracy has a Bible! But for some reason, it’s like pulling teeth to get them to read it. Also in my research, the result of Bible illiteracy is Liberal Christianity…Christians who have become numb to the sin occurring in the world around them that they begin to accept it as the norm, even sometimes believing the Bible supports it.

Another bit of misinterpretation from this passage is when Jesus said that people are like angels in Heaven. Taken at face-value, one might think He’s saying that people become actually angels when we die. But that is not at all what Jesus is saying here, for the context is marriage. What Jesus is saying is that just as the angels in Heaven are neither married nor given in marriage, neither are those of us who enter His eternal presence.

If you don’t read your Bible regularly, then it’s real easy to begin to believe non-truths, forget what the Bible actually says, get caught up in what others who don’t know what the Bible actually says, say that the Bible says, and to form your understandings about God into misunderstandings about God. As Christians, it’s imperative that we know what is and what is not in the Bible, how to explain what’s going on, and when somebody’s getting something wrong. When Jesus corrected the Sadduccees, He responded, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God”. As Christians, we need to be sure that we don’t make the same mistake.

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