The old song, ”School days, school days, dear old golden rule days” is being re-enacted across the land as literally millions are returning to the class room. The long lines and the rush to get to school is not limited to the young as many adults go back to school to get their diplomas each year. We often read of people in their seventies getting their degree after so many years. There must be thousands who graduate each year who are over forty.

Regardless of their age, each student is attending school in order to learn something that they did not know before. Many students complain that they are required to take courses that will be of little use to them upon graduation. When we consider the number of hours consumed studying subjects that will have little value, the total is staggering. Solomon said hundreds of years ago that ”of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” When he said that the printing press had not yet been invented and although it was true when he said it, the number of books now in existence must number many billions more than when Solomon penned these words.

If we spent a lifetime doing nothing but reading we could not begin to put a dent in all the books written. This means we must put our individual priorities on the things we want to learn and concentrate on what we believe is important. What is important?

If we could find five people who were each the foremost authority in each of their five fields such as economics, medicine, physics, ancient history and music, what would we have? Well certainly we would have five experts who knew more about their chosen field than anyone else in the world, but how would we feel if we knew that each of these experts had one thing in common. They were all terminal cancer cases. Now they might be rich and famous and they might feel a sense of accomplishment, but not necessarily so. But let’s say that each one has achieved all that heart could wish in the way of success. Certainly we would have to admit that their knowledge had proved beneficial in helping them rise to the top in their field. But now that they are going to die, what can they take with them”. Certainly not their money or their knowledge. When they draw their last breath all that learning is gone. David rightly assessed the situation when he said, ”Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased: For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself. He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.”

There is a knowledge that is able to make one wise unto salvation. With all the learning that is going on in the world, let’s make sure that we are acquiring this kind of knowledge for it is the only kind that will have any lasting benefit.

Let us try to ”walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”