Drinking from a thimble …

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Are you wise?

Would others say you have a good understanding of life?

Are you a knowledgeable person?

If you’re not wise and lack understanding and knowledge, who’s to blame?

In a speech titled “TiVoing the News, Googling Wisdom,” delivered by Robert Steck at Miss Hall’s School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 2005, Steck shared the following:

    Researchers have figured out that a single issue of the New York Times contains about twice as much information as the average citizen of Shakespeare’s London would have come across in an entire lifetime. And that’s just one issue of one newspaper from one American city.

    If you go online, of course, you can read newspapers from cities and regions all over the globe … and that’s just the newspaper websites, an extremely tiny percentage of the total … today there are about 36 million [as of 2012 there are more than 600 million websites].

    The point is that any one of us has more instantaneous access to information than Shakespeare could have expected to see in several lifetimes. Or than Socrates. Or Moses. Or …

    You get the point.

Steck concluded with this …

    There’s a clear difference between access to information and acquisition of wisdom … Floods of information and too few tools to extract understanding or wisdom is like standing thirsty in front of Niagara Falls equipped only with a thimble. Make it an overriding mission … to equip yourselves with better devices than just thimbles to sort through huge quantities of information.

The same is true for Christians. We have chains of bookstores selling “Christian” books, commentaries, and Bible study aids. Christian radio programs provide Bible teaching 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are Christian television programs, and a plethora of Christian podcasts. The internet is flooded with Christian websites. And in most American homes, there’s usually found at least a couple of Bibles.

But how wise are you in the Word? What’s your understanding of scripture? How knowledgeable are you regarding what is written in the Bible? Just how biblically literate are you?

When it comes to your knowledge of the Bible, are drinking from a hefty stein full of Living Water, or from a thimble?

“Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do! And whatever else you do, develop good judgment,” Proverbs 4:7.

“Fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment. Wisdom will multiply your days and add years to your life. If you become wise, you will be the one to benefit. If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer,” Proverbs 9:10-12.

Scotty