If I know the basics, why should I work hard at understanding the rest of what the Bible teaches?Ken Berding writes,"Knowing the gospel and communicating it to others is great. But let me give you four reasons why you should invest time in learning the Bible well:

1. The Bible itself clearly instructs us to go beyond just the “milk” of the Word and to progress to the “meat” (Hebrews 6:11-7:3; cf. 1 Corinthians 3:1-2).
2. It is impossible to obey the Bible’s command to “meditate” on the Word of God without memorizing it, since memorization was presupposed in an oral cultural setting where people did not personally own biblical scrolls.
3. You will never learn how to think “Christianly” about life, purpose, problems, decisions—or anything for that matter—unless you are filling your mind with the words God inspired to teach about himself and his ways.
4. You will be unable to recognize false teaching when it comes into the church, whether from cults (like Jehovah’s Witnesses), false religions (like Islam), or notions popular among secular postmoderns (such as “all truth is relative”) unless you really know the Bible and what it teaches."