{"id":4017,"date":"2022-06-04T03:41:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T03:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4017"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:10","slug":"for-lack-of-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4017","title":{"rendered":"FOR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday I posted these results from a study conducted by the Barna Group of 15,000 Americans, asking about their spiritual development. These people were asked where they would place themselves on the following spectrum:<\/p>\n\n\n

    \n\n
  1. Unaware of Sin\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01%<\/li>\n\n\n
  2. Indifferent to Sin\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 16%<\/li>\n\n\n
  3. Worried about Sin\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 39%<\/li>\n\n\n
  4. Forgiven for Sin\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 9%<\/li>\n\n\n
  5. Busy in Church Activities\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a024%<\/li>\n\n\n
  6. Holy Discontent\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 6%<\/li>\n\n\n
  7. Broken by God\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 3%<\/li>\n\n\n
  8. Surrender & Submission\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1%<\/li>\n\n\n
  9. Profound Love of God\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 0.5%<\/li>\n\n\n
  10. Profound Love of People\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 0.5%<\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\n

    If we agree that the whole point of the Christian faith is to love God and to love others, then why are only 1% of respondents reporting that this is where they are in life? Where is the breakdown?<\/p>\n\n\n

    In a sermon entitled Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity<\/i>, John Wesley was tackling the same sort of question in his day: “What a mystery is this, that Christianity should have done so little good in the world! Can any account of this be given? Can any reasons be assigned for it?”<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

    His conclusion was this:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

    “What do the hulk of [professing Christians] know of scriptural Christianity? Having had frequent opportunity of conversing with many of these, both at home and abroad, I am bold to affirm, that they are in general totally ignorant, both as to the theory and practice of Christianity; so that they are “perishing” by thousands “for lack of knowledge,” — for want of knowing the very first principles of Christianity.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

    I think he is right, but how is it that so many people commit their time, their money, and their very selves to something they really don’t understand?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Yesterday I posted these results from a study conducted by the Barna Group of 15,000 Americans, asking about their spiritual development. These people were asked where they would place themselves on the following spectrum: If we agree that the whole point of the Christian faith is to love God and to love others, then why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4018,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017\/revisions\/4018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}