Knowledge
The Los Angeles County Library recently added the two millionth book to its collection. This is graphic evidence of the truth of Solomon’s remark that ”of making many books there is no end.”
Solomon continued his observations by saying that ”much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Every student can certainly vouch for this, for after poring over calculus or biology books for hours, the flesh can become very weary.
In spite of the weariness of the flesh that study brings, we still find more and more books being written and more and more students poring over them in order to increase their knowledge of this or that.
In view of this mad thirst for learning which has filled the colleges and universities to overflowing, it might seem reasonable to expect that interest in God’s book would also be increasing, but unfortunately, this is not the case. There is a very good reason for the lack of interest in Divine things in this highly intellectual space age. It is because ”the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God” and the reverse is also true for Paul rightly observed that the preaching of Christ crucified was foolishness to the Greeks. The intellectuals of today are far too busy learning and teaching the so-called ”important” things to have time to read the Bible.
With all the increase of knowledge, with all the unsolved problems that face mankind today, with the threat of annihilation hanging over our heads it would seem that surely people would turn to their Bibles for comfort, for instruction and for help. This is not the case. Instead they enroll in night school to make ane wise. Today, we find that even the housewife is not in the house but in the class-room instead. We recall another ”housewife” of many years ago who desired to use methods other than those God had appointed to become wise for she ”saw a tree to be desired to make one wise, and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.”
Worldly wisdom in itself is not a sin but if we allow it to take away the time we should give to God then it can become a very bad master. There is only so much time and the question we must each answer is, are we spending our time wisely putting first things first? We can never ever read two million books and we shall never know everything about anything so what shall we study and which book shall we read first?
If we only had six months to live it wouldn’t matter very much how much we knew about astronomy, physics, ancient history or geology. These are all admittedly worthwhile subjects about which we would like to know more, but now with only six months to live, there isn’t any use learning more because we shall never have an opportunity to use what we now know. There is only one kind of knowledge that matters at a time like this. It is the kind of knowledge that Timothy had, for Paul commended him saying, ”From a child thou has known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.”
As we commence a new year of waiting for the return of our Lord, let us be sure that we always find time for the important ”Book” and that we study those things that are able to make us wise unto salvation.
