This week I stopped in the UPS store to mail a package. In fact, it was a Bible.  A gentlemen who was a part of our church’s campus at the county jail had been recently transferred to a state prison.  When they are “chained out” it usually happens quickly and they are not allowed to take any of their personal belongings, such as a Bible, with them.  He had written me to request a new Bible.  So I grabbed one from the stack we keep for this purpose, wrote a note to go with it and headed to the UPS store.

I walked into the store, pulled a bubble wrap shipping envelope from the shelves, placed the Bible inside, and wrote the sending address on the envelope. I took the package to the counter, placed it on the shipping scale and pulled out my debit card preparing to pay for the envelope and the shipping.  The clerk began to follow the prompts in her computer system asking how fast I wanted to get the package there, checking the weight of it and then reaching over to get the measurements of the envelope.  As she picked it up she asked if it was a book and I sheepishly responded with a simple yes.  After a few more questions she asked one that I found very peculiar. “Is it dangerous?” Hmmmm…..

I knew she was wanting to know if the contents of the package could cause physical harm to anyone who was responsible for transporting it from the UPS store to the state prison. The easy, straightforward and painless answer to that was, “No.” But I so perilously wanted to say, “Yes! It is absolutely dangerous!” I wanted to answer that inside the contents of this book was a self proclamation that it was “sharper than any two edged sword.”  I wished to tell her that in some parts of the world one can be arrested or even murdered for owning this book.  I desired to inform her that the words on the pages of this book are not just for information but for dangerous transformation. I also wanted to retort that this book is open to very reckless misinterpretation.  So, yes, it is very dangerous!

But I simply responded, “No.” As I walked out of the UPS store pondering the danger of the book I just sent away in self-contained, protected, bubble wrapped envelope here’s what I should have said.  Yes, the book is definitely dangerous and this is why:

1. Biblical Ignorance

James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says (NIV).” Biblical ignorance is not a lack of knowledge but an absence of application. When we start studying the Bible, God begins to show us areas of our lives that need to be changed. We are deceiving ourselves if we think we are growing simply by reading the Bible, listening to a sermon or taking notes on a Bible study. That’s not dangerous – translating what we are reading and hearing into action is dangerous.

2. Biblical Arrogance

1 Corinthians 8:1 says, “…knowledge puffs up but love builds up (ESV).” We’ve all seen people who can quote the Bible, but they’ve never let it change their lives. They use the Bible as a hammer to pound on other people. Without allowing the Bible to our alter our lives we run the risk of just becoming crabby, mean-spirited, critical and judgmental people. Knowledge without application produces pride. It will “puff” you up without a love-based application. It can hurt, not help and that’s dangerous.

Is it dangerous? Hmmm… You decide.