IGNORE: To refuse to notice or recognize. IGNORANCE: The state or condition of being ignorant. IGNORANT: Lacking education or knowledge; lacking awareness; not informed or experienced with; manifesting or caused by ignorance; not to know. Webster’s Concise Dictionary of the English Language: Encyclopedic Edition.

For each thing we are knowledgeable of we are ignorant of a millions of things. The primary cause of ignorance of a subject is lack of familiarity with the subject. For example, do any of you understand nuclear physics? Neither do I. We are ignorant of that subject because we have never studied it. We do not have relatives involved in the discipline, neither do we have books on the subject at our disposal. Therefore, we are not familiar with nuclear physics. I recently was engaged in conversation with someone who, upon seeing something on t.v. about a subject neither of us even knew existed, stated that she marveled that the people involved knew what they knew. My response was that if she had studied the subject (became familiar with it) she would know what those people know. Familiarity, therefore, is the key to the eradication of ignorance.

The two primary causes of lack of familiarity are 1) circumstance–not having access to the subject and 2) choice–having access to the subject but lacking interest in it. In that the Holy Bible is the most printed, most purchased and most stolen book in the history of printing, spiritual ignorance is an individual choice–a self-inflicted spiritual wound. There are numerous organizations who do nothing but print and distribute Bibles, most of them free of charge. The internet provides information for people living in the most primitive areas of the world–one can read the entirety of the Bible on line. This combined with Institutional Christendom’s extensive missionary programs extending into the farthest reaches of human existence assures that anyone who wants to know God’s Word can know it. So why do we find almost universal ignorance of the Book most human beings have at their disposal? This series of postings will answer that question. The fact that the answer will not sit well with some readers has no effect on the spiritual condition of those who choose to live in ignorance of God’s Way and Will. As He said: “My people ARE DESTROYED for LACK of KNOWLEDGE” (Hos. 4:6). Note that God was referring to HIS PEOPLE–those who called themselves by His name. Note also that they were dying spiritually because they REJECTED THE  TRUTH His prophets were giving them. Anciently, most people were illiterate and could not have read the Torah and the writings of prophets if they had been available to them. To have access to God’s Truth they went either to the Temple in Jerusalem or to their local synagogue in order to hear God’s Word read by a priest who would then teach them how to apply it to their everyday lives. Today, illiteracy is found only the darkest of earth’s areas. And with Bibles available on demand, most people have no excuse for ignorance of God’s Truth. Which begs the question: Why are church people, most of whom own several Bibles, almost totally ignorant of the very Word they claim as their behavioral standard and by which they will be judged? Let us take a trip back through church history in search of the answer. To be continued. L.J.