Scripture Is the Foundation of the Christian Life
Scripture is the Word of God. Everything in the Christian faith comes to us through it. Who God is, why Christ came into the world, what the church is, why believers worship and pray, how this present age will end, who will be saved and enter heaven — Scripture is what teaches us all of this. For that reason, every Christian must know the Bible. Throughout the whole of our life in the faith, we are called to continue in learning it and being convinced of it.
Beware of an Empty, Formal Faith
Jesus warned the people of Israel that they honored God with their lips while turning the commandments of men into the Word of God, and so worshiped Him in vain (Matthew 15:8-9). We would do well to ask whether our own faith is the kind God actually recognizes. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus described people who came to Him saying they had done mighty works and taught in His name — and He turned to them and said, "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness" (Matthew 7:23). That rebuke was not aimed at unbelievers. It was aimed at people who assumed their activity was proof of their faith.
Learn and Be Assured of the Word, as Timothy Did
Paul commended Timothy for his sincere faith and his clear conscience (2 Timothy 1:3-4). How did Timothy come to hold a faith like that? From childhood, his parents had taught him the Scriptures, and it was those Scriptures that made him wise for salvation (2 Timothy 3:15).
So how did Timothy's family raise him this way? Deuteronomy 6 shows us.
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
This is often called Israel's charter — the command God gave to His whole people, and the pattern Israelite families still follow today in raising their children. It is no accident that Jewish education is so widely admired around the world. Generations were shaped by Scripture from earliest childhood, and out of that came men and women of extraordinary influence.
The Word Equips the Believer Who Learns and Believes
Scripture is profitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be complete and equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). This is why every Christian must continue in learning and believing God's Word, devoting themselves further to the discipline of prayer and the Word (2 Timothy 3:14; 1 Timothy 4:8).
And yet so many believers, after decades in the faith, have never once read the Bible from cover to cover. They cannot say who God is, why Jesus came, why He died on the cross, what the church actually is, or why they worship at all. This is a far more common condition than we would like to admit. Every Christian, following Paul's charge to Timothy, must continue in learning and believing the Word and let their progress in the faith be visible to everyone — because faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ, the Word of God (Romans 10:17).
We must always be reading and hearing Scripture and living lives of godliness. That is the substance of the Christian life, and that godly life is itself a blessing to the believer. Revelation 1:3 tells us that the one who reads, the one who hears, and the one who keeps what is written in this prophecy is blessed.
Hear It, Read It, Learn It, Study It
Educators often say that we retain roughly 10 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we read, 50 percent of what we write out, and 90 percent of what we learn deeply enough to teach or recite. If that is true, we have every reason to hear, read, write, learn, and be convinced of Scripture through as many channels as we can.
First, we must hear the Word of God. Faith grows every time we hear the Word preached in worship. Worship is the foundation of the Christian life, and our faith matures through the regular hearing of preaching. But hearing alone is not enough — most of us, honestly, cannot remember last Sunday's sermon title, its text, or its content.
Second, we must read Scripture for ourselves, daily. Just as we eat daily to sustain the body, we must feed on the Word daily to sustain the spirit. Reading through the whole Bible at least once a year is a good discipline, and beyond that, we need the daily practice of meditating on and applying what we read — what many call devotional reading, or quiet time.
Third, we must learn and study the Word. No amount of hearing, reading, or meditating exhausts what Scripture has to teach us, which is why deliberate study matters. Many churches now offer strong programs for this, and there is no shortage of good study material available. Anyone who wants to learn can learn. It is worth remembering, too, that Christians who fall for decades into false teaching usually do so not because they lacked zeal, but because they were never rightly taught the Word.
Blessed Is the One Who Keeps It, Not Merely Learns It
There is one thing, finally, that we must never let go of: it is not learning the Word that matters most, but keeping what it says. However much Scripture we know, it means nothing if we do not live by it. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that whether our faith is real or false is shown by its fruit. Many will say to Him, "Lord, Lord," and still not enter the kingdom of heaven, because saying is not the same as obeying.
Hearing, reading, and knowing the Word all matter. But what matters more is living according to what we believe. It is in that kind of life that our faith grows, our belief becomes solid, and our spiritual life becomes rich. When we live within God's Word, He affirms our faith, and He keeps His promise to help us, guide us, and remain present with us through every circumstance of life — so that even in this hard world, we live as those who overcome, by faith.
About Author
Choi Jong Eui
Pastor, teacher, and writer committed to connecting Christian faith with everyday life. He writes with the hope of praising the Lord and faithfully completing the mission entrusted to him, bearing good fruit to the glory of God.
