Information, Knowledge, And Wisdom

                Information, knowledge, and wisdom are not synonymous words. They are closely related though. Keep this in mind when I ask the question: are you reading the Bible for information, knowledge, or wisdom? Let's use John 3:16 for example. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

                Information is a sequence of symbols (such as pictures, letters, numbers, etc.) that can be interpreted as a message. If we read John 3:16 as information, we could do basic reading comprehension and understand that it is a sentence. We would walk away with nothing more than a memory verse. Now, nothing is wrong with memorizing Bible verses; but if we only know how to spit out the Bible verse, never knowing what it means, we have wasted out time completely. We can repeat the words, just like remembering titles of books; but what's the point of knowing a book by it's title if you know nothing that is inside? There has to be more than just remembering symbolic patterns.

                Knowledge, is the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association. Using John 3:16 again, if we understand it through knowledge, we know that God loves us, that God gave His only son for us, that whoever believes in this loving God's sacrifice will have eternal life. With knowledge, you can "own" the information and use it when applicable to teach others or benefit a cause. This is great to have when teaching, but is this it when it comes to reading the Bible? Just being able to tell other people what the Bible means?

                Wisdom is the judicious application of knowledge. Judicious, meaning to have shown, or done something with, good judgment or sense. If we see John 3:16 through wise eyes, we become the person that God sent His son to die for and we want to accept that everlasting life through believing in Him. Wisdom is taking knowledge and applying it properly.

                Are we reading the Bible to comprehend a sentence? Are we reading the Bible to be familiar with the verses? Or are we reading the Bible to know how to apply the verses in the most practical and judiciously proper sense? I, personally, wish to gain wisdom from the Bible; because in order to gain wisdom I must obtain the knowledge, and in order to obtain the knowledge I must understand the information. I wish the gain the most out of every word from the scripture, because they are the words directly from God. Let's take our Bible's more seriously.