Category: Scripture Index

  • Knowing the Bible like the back of my hand

    Knowing the bible like the back of your hand

    If I said to you that I know something like the back of my hand, you would understand what I meant. It’s an English language idiom that means “to have very good and detailed knowledge of something.”

    If someone said to you, “I know the bible like the back of my hand,” you would understand them to mean a deep understanding of the Scriptures, likely with large portions memorized, a more-than-average understanding of the various books, their contexts and how they come together. Honestly, it’s a pretty bold claim.

    While the Bible doesn’t use that idiom, it could be said of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law in Jesus day. They knew what we call the Old Testament backward and forward and could likely recite at least the first five books word for word. They also understood all the rabbinical interpretations and applications. I would love to have their knowledge.

    The man we come to know as Paul the Apostle was once known as Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was highly regarded as a zealot, a teacher and a persecutor of the Christian faith. He stood by and held Stephen’s cloak as Stephen was being stoned to death for his beliefs. No one doubted his sincerity, his knowledge or his passion.

    Despite all that, Saul was missing something. He didn’t yet know Jesus. That would come later in a divine encounter on the Damascus Road.

    Without Christ, all his knowledge, his years of study, the sincerity of his beliefs and his zeal were meaningless. He was doomed to eternal damnation.

    In Acts, Paul says; I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but having been brought up in this city, having been instructed at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strictness of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today. Acts 2:3

    Throughout Paul’s writings, we see that he came to understand that Jesus was the promised Messiah and that we are saved by faith through God’s grace and mercy, bought by the shed blood of Jesus.

    For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

    Paul also teaches that we need to know the Word, to understand what it teaches and apply it to our lives. To be a Christian takes faith, but that doesn’t exclude knowledge.

    All the “head knowledge” in the world, even if you can say you know the Bible, church history and theology like “the back of my hand”, without that moving to your heart and manifesting as faith, it’s useless.

    Faith isn’t a blind leap. You have to have enough knowledge to know you are a sinner and what you need to be reconciled to God. Our walk isn’t a question of faith versus knowledge. It’s faith and knowledge. 

    Faith saves you, and the knowledge and its application deepen your relationship. With Christ. The way to reconciliation with God

    I pray you have the faith to be saved, and the head knowledge to understand. I pray that your love for Jesus and knowledge of what He requires move you to application (works)

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God) 

    Be blessed 

    Kevin 

    Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone) 

    SUMMARY

    Knowing Scripture deeply is admirable, but even the most profound biblical knowledge is worthless without personal faith in Jesus Christ. True Christian living requires both — faith that saves and knowledge that deepens the relationship.

    KEY POINTS

    Saul of Tarsus had unmatched scriptural knowledge yet was lost without Christ, proving that head knowledge alone cannot save. 

     Salvation comes by grace through faith — not works or intellectual achievement — as Paul himself came to understand after his Damascus Road encounter. 

     Faith and knowledge are not opposites; faith saves us, while growing in the Word deepens our walk with Christ and moves us toward application.

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    All contents, “Gleanings From the Word” and “Experience an Extraordinary God in Ordinary Life,” are © 2001, 2026 K.F. “Kevin” Corbin, “Gleanings From the Word.” All rights reserved.

    Scripture quotations are from the Legacy Standard Bible® (LSB®), Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. 

    From Gleanings From The Word (Kevin Corbin, 2001– ), a Scripture-based devotional work.

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  • The great transfer – From Darkness into light

    A man standing in ne shadows moving from darkness to light

    Some friends shared some images of their recent Alaskan cruise on social media. That got me thinking of the Alaska Purchase – where the USA purchased Alaska from Russia. The price in 1867 was $7.2 million, a real bargain. That led me to think of other great transfer stories.

    Most North Americans are familiar with the Louisiana Purchase, in which France transferred land to the US for $15 Million. In a series of purchases, the US bought ½ of what was then Mexico.

    The buying and selling of countries and territories has been going on for centuries. It’s not just an American thing. Countries have been the subject of transfers since near the beginning of time.

    It’s certainly not an everyday occurrence, but it is far from being without precedent. There is a great transfer that is mind-boggling in scope. It’s an event that happened at a specific point in time but is still happening today.

    And although you were formerly alienated and enemies in mind and in evil deeds, but now He reconciled you in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— if indeed you continue in the faith firmly grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. Colossians 1:21-23

    By the grace of God, through what Christ accomplished, sinners are transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Light. We go from being rebellious sinners to children of God. We are no longer slaves to sin but covered under the imputed righteousness of Jesus.

    I sometimes think we really don’t understand how powerful a transaction that was. God, the offended party, stepped in to free those who committed the offense. By His own blood, He redeems people who were His enemies. He pays our price.

    We’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve it. We can’t save up enough good deed points to pay our own way. We are lost forever, separated by nature and choice from the one who loves us.

    For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8

    Inconceivable? Unbelievable? Mind blowing? Yes! Yet equally as true. It is the ultimate Great Transfer.

    That’s the reality of the gospel, the good news, the euangelion that the Scriptures proclaim and believers testify to. In one agonizing event, people from every tribe, tongue and age were transferred from darkness to light, a process that continues today.

    Praise God that you have been transferred to His family and tell others that hope is open to them as well.

    Be blessed 

    Kevin 

    SUMMARY

    The greatest “purchase” in history isn’t a territorial transaction but the redemption of sinners by Christ — who, at infinite personal cost, transferred His enemies from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light. Unlike the Louisiana or Alaska Purchases, this transaction was paid not with gold but with the blood of God Himself, and its effects continue to unfold in every generation.

    KEY POINTS

    The Price Was Staggering — While the Alaska Purchase cost $7.2 million and the Louisiana Purchase $15 million, the redemption of sinners cost the Son of God His life — paid on behalf of people who were His enemies and had done nothing to earn it. 

    The Transfer Is Total — Through Christ’s death, believers move from alienation and guilt to being presented before God as holy, blameless, and beyond reproach — a transformation no human effort or accumulated merit could ever achieve. 

    The Transaction Is Still Open — This redemption, accomplished at a specific moment in history, continues to be applied today across every tribe, tongue, and generation, making the proclamation of the gospel an urgent and ongoing mission.

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