On behalf of Bishop Patrick L. Wooden, Sr., Prelate of North Carolina Third Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, welcome to the Church Of God In Christ Academy.

In Hosea 4:6, God said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge [of me], I will also reject thee.” Knowledge is important to God, so much so that in Jer. 31:31-34, God promised to put His law in His people’s inward parts and write it in their hearts, so that every man will know Him.

In Christianity, knowledge is indispensable to the faith which is required by the gospel. Let’s face it: without knowledge you cannot produce faith. And without faith, it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6). Jesus said in John 6:45, “. . . And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me” [emphasis added]. Accordingly, faith is directly linked to knowledge and one must have both in order to enter into Basileia, the Kingdom of God. And because knowledge is so important, Christianity is a religion of instruction. It is the religion of thinkers. Christianity is based in historical fact, and fact requires investigation and verification to be believed.

I hope that you will give the North Carolina Third COGIC Academy the opportunity to teach you, to strengthen you in the Word of God, to bring out your spirit of apologia, to make you hard-core soldiers in the army of the LORD. The crisis we face in this world’s system is real and it is spiritually deadly. Unless there is a revival of interest among Believers in studying the rich teachings of the Word of God, we run the risk of becoming like those people in the book of Hosea.

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[1]“Faith and Knowledge,” Bert Thompson, Ph.D., 1994 Apologetics Press, Inc., www.apologeticspress.org