Solomon recognized a tragic truth about humanity: we desperately want to do things our own way, and we hate being told what to do. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6 NIV1984). So Solomon urged his sons to avoid mistakes he had made, encouraging them to heed God’s Word and to make obedience a lifelong habit.

[Saturday] I stressed the value of memorizing God’s Word and talked about how doing so has benefited me in practical ways throughout the years. Memorization, however, is only one of many ways to interact with Scripture. First, we can hear Scripture. This is the simplest, least difficult method of learning the precepts and principles of the Bible.

Few things are more obvious and alarming in our times than biblical illiteracy. Even though the human mind can absorb an enormous amount of information, mental laziness remains a scandalous and undeniable trend in popular culture and even within the church. Fewer people than ever know the most basic contents of the Bible, and that was not the case until roughly fifty years ago.