Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

II Timothy 2:15, NIV (1978)

Do your best to correctly handle the word of truth - the King James Version words puts it this way: "Study to show thyself approved". Our knowledge of the Word of God is so important that God lets us know that we need to be ashamed of ourselves should we choose to remain willfully ignorant of the truths contained within that Word. As one who has made an attempt to study more after I turned from a child to an adult, I can honestly say that there has been more than one occasion in my life where I was ashamed that I was not as familiar with Scripture as I should have been. 

I have enjoyed doing home Bible studies. Over the years, my wife and I have been blessed to have had a number of opportunities to share a Bible study with someone who was interested in learning more about the Bible. We have also, on very rare occasions, run into someone who really didn't want to find out what God's Word revealed as much as they wanted to prove what they already believed. I can relate to that because there have been too many times in my own life when I was studying to confirm my own beliefs rather than to find out what God really had to say. Whenever we get that way, there is indeed much cause for shame.

I find as I get older, however, that I am far more interested in making sure I am learning everything God wants me to know, rather than being perceived as being right in something I don't know. So, instead of reading the Bible to prove I am right, I am finally getting much more concerned with making sure that I know His will so I can do it. Life is far too short to remain in ignorance due to preconceived notions and bias, so it behooves us all to study to show ourselves approved. After all, if a person is of the belief that the habits he enjoys so much are harmless, he will likely do little to try and find out if he is wrong. Just ask anyone who smoked in the 1960's who didn't want to listen to all of those "alarmist studies" if this was a beneficial belief to hold.

I came across a person the other day who was quite offended at the notion that there might be some good in some of the founders of our own nation. After all, they owned slaves didn't they? I tried to explain that many of our founders worked hard to include a ban on slavery when writing the Constitution, but they eventually had to compromise with the pro-slave states to instead slowly phase out the importation of slaves. This was far ahead of the times for slavery was a worldwide practice, so it is remarkable that they were able to even get the compromise that they did. I don't think I got very far though, for this man believed what he wanted to believe and didn't want to hear any evidence that would threaten that belief. I guess I can understand, for learning things that might threaten my own beliefs, prejudiced though they may be, has all too often been something I have engaged in myself.

But we need to realize that this is unacceptable when it comes to the Word of God. In fact, anything short of our best efforts in correctly handling the Bible is shameful in God's eyes. Whether we agree with Him or not, whether we are in the majority of our peers or not, will be of small consolation if we found out at the Judgment that we should not have been content to remain ignorant of the things that God wanted us to know.

Fortunately, the cure for ignorance is surprisingly simple: We just need to do our best to study to show ourselves approved.