The longest running game show is Jeopardy. For the three of you who have never heard of it, it’s a sort of reverse trivia game where the contestants have to answer in the form of a question.
For example…
The largest religion in the world
Answer: What is Christianity?
There have been some incredibly smart people on this show—if you equate having millions of bits of data at your fingertips as “smart.” Personally, if I had to choose between the two, I’d rather have the other kind of smarts that the Bible talks about when it speaks of “wisdom.” A computer can spit out data, but few people these days seem to have deep, godly wisdom that comes from above.
Very, very few.
Do you know the difference?
Here’s how you can tell whether you are book smart in Christianity, or whether you have the kind of wisdom that comes from a deep and intimate relationship with the Savior.
Answer the following questions:
- Do you find yourself defending doctrine more than Jesus?
- Was your first reaction to the above question something like, “Is he saying doctrine isn’t important?” (Note, I didn’t say that)
- Would you define the gospel in formulaic terms?
- Have you ever lead anyone to Jesus (Or would you say that is better left to the “professionals?”).
- Would you say “rightly dividing the Word of God” more or less comes down to “people agreeing with you,” or actually, “rightly dividing the Word of God?”
- How would you define a good Christian? –Goes to church regularly, tithes regularly, never cusses, reads the Bible at least 10 minutes a day, is a republican, boycotts bad people (instead of witnessing to them), etc? <– Be honest 🙂
If you answered yes to the first three, no to the fourth, yes to the fifth and agreed with most of the sixth—you are likely what’s known as, “Christian Book Smart.”
Congratulations!
That’s the good news!
The bad news however, is that there is a strong likelihood that you are lost and do not actually know Jesus.
Wait! Hear me out. Surely we can all agree that something this serious is at least worth a listen.
Consider this: By far the most scripturally book smart people on the planet in Jesus’ day were the Pharisees. Some of them even had the first five books of the Bible memorized! They could have trounced any Old Testament scholar alive today in regurgitating biblical data. It wouldn’t even be close.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that nearly all of them missed God when He stood right in front of them day after day after day.
For the disciples, on the other hand, and all early believers, Christianity wasn’t a set of doctrines. How could it be? We hadn’t even complicated the simplicity of the gospel with all the add-ons at that point. No, for them, the gospel was Jesus and evangelism was introducing people to Him.
Sadly, I’ve been to far more churches where the list above describes them more accurately than what the church was throughout the book of Acts.
Imagine how much healthier the Bride of Christ would be today if we all got back to that one vital starting point—just bringing people to Jesus.