“But we also need to make this clear: knowing more Bible doesn’t necessarily make me a better Christian. I’ve hung around with enough nasty Bible scholars and enough mean-spirited pastors to know that knowing more Bible does not inevitably create a better Christian. And I’ve known plenty of loving Christians who don’t know the difference between Matthew and John, let alone the differences between Kings and Chronicles….Point well-taken. I agree wholeheartedly with this.
“No matter how much Bible we know, we will not be changed until we give ourselves over to what Augustine called ‘faith seeking understanding.’ The way of Jesus is personal, and it is relational, and it is through the door of loving God and loving others. The mind is a dimension of our love of God (heart, soul, mind, and strength), but it is not the only or even the first door to open.” — Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 144,145.
But... I think the evidence nonetheless doesn't support the point. The point shouldn't be that there are plenty of people who know a lot of Bible but who are pretty crappy people. That is of course the case - all Christians can think of a number of people who fit that bill. But I also have noticed that certain kinds of people are more likely to devote considerable time to studying the Bible. For Reformed Calvinists, the heterogeneity is even more pronounced in fact, because then, the kind of studying done is very bookish, abstract, and overtly theological. But, it may very well be that these people who are such crappy people are actually being significantly enhanced through their Bible studies - it's just that the counter-factual is not comparisons to those people who aren't devoting so much time to studying the bible (they are, after all, usually systematically different in important ways which are relevant to the point McKnight is making). The correct counter-factual is what the people in question would've been like had they not devoted so much time to Bible study. That is up in the air. I can imagine they'd be worse (which is a scary thought). I can imagine that they'd be better.
The real influence on our character is going to be a combination of the company we keep, the conversations we have, and the stories told in that company, which for religious people is going to have something to do with the Bible study done. Even faith seeking understanding done in the context of a corrupted community won't get us very far.
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