“Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the Lord. “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’?” (Jeremiah 8:7–8, ESV)
Is nature wiser than people? Oh, men have great intellect, greater than the animals. Yet are men truly wise? From what I see in our world and the words of the Lord here in these verses, I would say not. But what about those in the church? How wise are we?
Here in this passage, the Lord is looking at the people of Judah, the Israelites who had the law. Yet they did not heed the law. For this reason, the Lord considered them as unwise. I am afraid that many in the church will fall under this condemnation also.
Years ago, I received a book titled, “The Bondage of the Will.” The book contained a series of letters written by Martin Luther to another theologian named Erasmus contending with Erasmus’ on a theological issue. As I read this, I became aware of Luther’s tremendous depth of biblical and theological understanding. Considering that Luther lived in the 1500’s, I thought that he had none of the biblical study aids that I had at my disposal today. I have a computer with Bible study software that includes thousands of resources. In seconds, I can search through the Bibles for words or phrases and find specific passages. I have commentaries, indexes, Bible dictionaries, and so on at my disposal. Luther had nothing like this at his disposal. Yet his vast biblical and theological knowledge was evident. He was a student of the Bible. It was as if the word of God was so rich in him that it totally defined him.
This made me think. What about us? Have we studied to this extent? The people to whom Jeremiah ministered had the Law, but it was not part of them. The Law was with them but not in them. How do we know this? It is because they were not living by it. They were transgressing at every corner.
I am afraid that today a large portion of our church goers are biblically and theologically illiterate. The problem is that their sole intake of the word of God is a 30–45-minute sermon on Sunday morning every week. That is if they attend worship every week. Moreover, since regular attendance is now considered as low as twice per month, the total amount of Scripture intake for many believers is very small.
Consider this. If the average sermon covers 10-20 verses per week, then those whose only intake is from the weekly sermon will cover 520 to 1040 verses of the Bible in a year. When you compare this to the 31,102 verses in the total Bible, it would take 30 to 60 years for one to go through the entire Bible.
Believers must become more than pew sitters. They must become disciples who are wholly devoted to the Lord with a hunger to learn and grow in the word of God. They must move from being biblically and theologically illiterate to understanding the solid meat of God’s word.
Renewing the Heart 