While no discipline is more important than Bible study we must not stop there. Bible study is not the only important thing. We are to be “doers of the word” (James 1:22). After many years of observation I’m convinced that we often do the right things for the wrong reasons. Some people are in love with worship who do not love God. And some people study the Bible for no reason other than they enjoy it. They study the Word for entertainment, rather than edification. They enjoy studying the Bible like some people enjoy puzzles and games– it’s fun! I dare mention this because I see evidence of it all the time in that they refuse to do as the Lord commands. They take great pride in being able to quote many Bible verses, in being familiar with obscure passages, in being able to debate major doctrines, and in unfolding dark mysteries and answering tough questions — why some of them can tell you all about the mark of the beast, the anti-Christ, and who the two witnesses are.
Being a student of the Bible is great, but it is useless apart from obedience. Some have become smug and complacent, critical and argumentative, loud and proud, but they refuse to serve God. They are students but not servants. They love to learn but they never learn that the learning is for living! Having been the pastor of a great many Bible college students I’ve seen this over and over again. Some of them get so excited about Bible study that they lose sight of why they’re doing it. By the time they graduate they feel they are ready to go back home and enlighten their poor ignorant pastor–or take his place. They are forever studying the word, but they never get around to living out the “pure religion” mentioned in James 1:27, which is “To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
