Response Blog 1

     In a day and age where information has become so important, I find it interesting how at the same time it as also become less important at the same time. Much of the culture is screaming that truth does not matter, or that the only truth which matters is that which matters to us. To much disappointment, the church followed down the same route of ignorance as the rest of the culture. In a culture where the people only want to promote what matters to them, why does the church seemingly not even want to do that? In a 2014 poll by Pew Research, they found that about 40% of professing Christians believe that reading the Bible is an essential part of what being a Christian means to them. What does this tell us? This tells us that 60% of believers are not interested in the Christian scriptures. They do not feel the need to read them, and therefore are plunging themselves into ignorance. 

    Why is this significant? This is significant because in order to be obedient to the Lord our God, we must know that which He commands us to be obedient to. Jerry Bridges points this out when he says in his book Respectable Sins, "In the same way, we seldom think of our accountability to God and our responsibility to live according to His moral will as revealed to us in scripture" (55). What Bridges is pointing to is Colossians 1, where Paul wanted the believers to "be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom". This requires that we know His will, which is revealed in His Word. 

    What this then means in terms of ungodliness then, is that ungodliness more often than not stems from an ignorance of God, both personally and intellectually. In order to obey God's standards, we must first know God's standards. In order to love God, we must know Him, namely His Godhead and His wonderful attributes. The more one knows God in these ways, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the more he is apt to love and obey Him.

Let us then be a church who both knows God and obeys Him, because He is glorious and deserving of our every affection. This is the reason why Christ sent us on the Great Commission. To teach the nations His ways, because all power has been given to Him. 


Here is a great book for understanding who God is at the basic level. 


5 facts on how Americans view the Bible and other religious texts | Pew Research Center

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