American professor E.D. Hirsch Jr. grasped the essential nature of our knowledge problem. He commented, in the preface of his book Cultural Literacy: “To be culturally literate is to possess the basic information needed to thrive in the modern world.”

Beyond the basic material knowledge we need for survival, each of us needs spiritual understanding and insight into that special knowledge revealed only by God Himself. Without a substantial spiritual foundation, our basic natural understanding will always fall short of showing us how to live fulfilled, truly abundant lives in the here and now—not to mention the incomparable prospect of everlasting life in the Kingdom of God!

Acquisition of knowledge is automatic with human beings. It is a function of our five senses. The core of the problem is whether our acquired learning fits into the framework revealed by God.

How should we evaluate our human achievements? What is God’s perspective?”

Thus says the LORD, ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches’ ” Jeremiah 9:23

Lest this be misunderstood, God is not against our having wisdom or riches. The Bible tells the story of many righteous people who were wise and wealthy. But they had—and the point made here is that we also should have—higher standards than merely intellectual or material ones.

Humanity pays a stiff penalty for breaking God's Laws. We see the evidence dramatised in media reports every day.

“ ‘But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,’ says the LORD”.  Jeremiah 9:24

To know God: This is the much-needed knowledge the world rejects. It has its origins in real humility. Only humble men and women can look beyond themselves to grasp the values God reveals.

“But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and hear what you hear, and did not hear it”.  Matthew 13:16-17

Knowing God’s Word is priceless knowledge! It is the true foundation for understanding all other knowledge and counteracts the false information we see about us.

Except, perhaps, for the supposition that it was an apple, writer Elizabeth Pond had the right perspective in a feature article in The Christian Science Monitor. She added: “Just what is disinformation? Simply put, it is the deliberate planting of false or misleading political information to influence either public or elite opinion. It is not just misinformation, or mistaken information . . . It is planted information with the source secret or disguised.” This view is borne out in the Bible.

Our time is marked by a massive ignorance about what the Bible actually says. We see that some writers and speakers can say almost anything about the Holy Scriptures and convince some people to believe them.

We are told variously that Judas Iscariot was innocent of Christ’s blood, that shoplifting is not a sin, that Jesus’ parables are morally disastrous, that He studied yoga in the Far East, that Paul is the real founder of Christianity, ad infinitum—all distorted ideas advanced in recent years by misguided religious thinkers.

This is the age of spiritual disinformation. People won’t and don’t read the Bible for themselves. Many are content to accept the views and opinions of so-called experts who are often quite biased in their perspective.