Interesting fact: There are approximately 400 verses in Revelation and yet there are about 550 allusions to the OT in this book written by John the Apostle. This means he knew the OT very, very well. He was a man of the book.
Because of this John Dyer notes,
This means that his writing, his thoughts, his spirituality literally bleeds with an deep, abiding knowledge of the Scriptures.
John didn’t just look up passages that supported his point. And he didn’t memorize a few powerful proof texts to argue and impress. He knew the Scriptures. He lived the Scriptures. The words of God were a part of him that couldn’t help but flow from his pen. The Spirit of God used that embedded knowledge and wisdom to enable John to write a book that contains more allusions than verses.
Dyer then observes,
You and I have access to dozens of English translations of the Bible, and we have the most powerful search capacities the Church has ever known – right in our pocket computers.
And yet, I would wager that we know much less of the Scriptures than any generation of believers. We have access to the Bible, but we do not know the Bible.
Accessible knowledge can be searched, analyzed, and mashedup, but it cannot transform the heart, mind, and soul. The accessible Bible is merely information. That information can only become knowledge and wisdom when it has been memorized, internalized, mediated upon, and lived.
Is that ever convicting or what?
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