I’m going to let you in on something. It’s not really a secret, but it’s discussed more among teachers than with students. This concept definitely helps educators to be more effective in their teaching, but students of anything can find great value in this.

If you’ve ever felt like something just wouldn’t stick in your brain, this can help. If you’ve ever wondered why you can recall a whole slew of things pertaining to one subject but not one speck of another, this can help.

What is it? Put simply, it’s a way of categorizing the levels at which we know and learn something.

Not everyone likes to think, and even fewer like to think about thinking. But this ability—to think about thinking—separates us from all other lifeforms on our planet. And learning how we learn is one of the great things about being human.

A group of educators led by Benjamin Bloom devised categorizations of learning in the early 1950s. It was solidified in 1956 as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Outcomes. These six “levels” were a hierarchy of how students know any concept—from superficial facts to deeper connections that help in more complex problem-solving.

The first was knowledge—students knowing or memorizing a fact. The next tier was comprehension—being able to rephrase those facts in their own words. Application was the label for the third level—using the previous two tiers to solve problems. A standard math problem involves only the first two tiers on the chart, whereas a “word problem” in math is at the third tier.

Fourth was analysis—being able to understand the separate components of the information and all its facets. Fifth was synthesis—seeing how these separate components fit together to form the whole, or taking units of information to make completely new connections with other information. The final tier was evaluation—the ability to use all the previous levels to make decisions and arguments about various circumstances.

This “taxonomy” was mainly to help teachers know how to test their material. If the information was only at the first level, the teacher might use multiple choice or a statement like “list …” for students to demonstrate factual knowledge. At the second tier, the test question might start with “define” or “explain.” The third tier may say, “Use [these facts] to show …” or, “Solve ….” Most tests usually operate on the first three levels of Bloom’s chart. Teachers get a sense of the other three levels through essays or other lengthier writing assignments.

This chart was simply a way to classify levels of learning. It was open to debate and revision among educators. A 2001 revision, for example, changed the terms to verbs and flipped the order of the last two levels: Remember, Understand, Apply (i.e. solve), Analyze, Evaluate, Create.

Another took that revision and even aimed it at students with simple commands and modifying verbs: Memorize stuff (identify, list, label, name, recite); explain stuff (match, summarize, rewrite, restate); solve stuff (examine, change, calculate); question stuff (investigate, categorize, compare, contrast); justify stuff (judge, argue, defend, critique); build stuff (invent, compose, formulate, design).

I’ll suggest another slight revision from a biblical perspective. We’ll eliminate “apply” and “evaluate,” because those can be done to varying degrees up and down the chart. Also, we tend to think about “apply” and “evaluate” more in the realm of character, making good judgments. This discussion will stay confined to mental processing.

I believe this will help you as a student in a number of ways. For one, it will help you memorize information better the further into the chart you are. But even more beneficial, it can help foster stronger mental habits of learning and deep thinking. For example, if you have trouble writing about things you’re learning and a class you’re in requires that, this will help.

Mental Levels in the Bible

The Bible acknowledges different levels of knowing things. This is easy to spot in the King James Version with the words “knowledge,” “understanding” and “wisdom.” One passage that uses all three is Colossians 1:9-10: “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

A couple of cautions here: When the Bible talks about these “levels,” it usually is in the context of spiritual understanding. God’s Word is clear that the human mind, without God’s mind (His Holy Spirit), cannot understand things of a spiritual nature (1 Corinthians 2:9-12). You can’t take physical knowledge of some biblical fact and dig deep enough to get into the realm of spiritual understanding. But considering how the Bible uses these different words for spiritual understanding helps show how we similarly can bottom out “physical” information and dig deep mentally.

Another caution is that the King James Version of the Bible translates a number of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words into just three English terms: “knowledge,” “understanding” and “wisdom.”

Knowledge: Know, Memorize It

In Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and English, we find words related to this concept of the most basic level of knowing something—that there is factual information that can be known at the surface level.

The Apostle Peter said: “… add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge” (2 Peter 1:5). Knowing things is part of the growth process.

The Apostle Paul said faith comes by hearing and studying God’s Word (Romans 10:17), and that even our zeal must be informed by knowledge (verse 2). James wrote that a “wise man” needs to be “endued with knowledge” (James 3:13). To get to the depth of wisdom, you cannot overlook basic facts. In fact, a characteristic of the wise is to diligently pursue knowledge (Proverbs 18:15). All the biblical terms we’ll explore for these various levels have several scriptures admonishing us to go after these things.

In The Incredible Human Potential, Herbert W. Armstrong wrote that knowledge is a prerequisite to becoming perfect spiritually: “[T]he newly converted Christian is not perfect all at once. … He wants to live completely above sin. But to live perfectly would require all spiritual knowledge. He would have to live by every word of the Bible.”

To be perfect, you would have to know everything (and that’s spiritual knowledge—not every physical fact ever!). It’s not the only requirement, but having “all spiritual knowledge” is necessary for the spiritual perfecting process.

We already read in Colossians 1:10 that we should be “increasing in the knowledge of God.” Peter says something similar in 2 Peter 1. We are to add to our knowledge as well—and he lists several spiritual characteristics, so we are not “unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (verses 6-8). Later, Peter said our growth in knowledge must be accompanied by growth in grace (2 Peter 3:18). He said knowledge without love simply puffs up (1 Corinthians 8:1). Otherwise, increasing knowledge could increase sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:18).

Comprehension: Understand, Explain It

The Bible is clear that we can’t just know facts. We have to understand them.

Proverbs 19:25 says we must “understand knowledge.” Daniel said God gives wisdom to those who “know understanding” (Daniel 2:21).

Paul praised his protége Timothy that he had “fully known” things pertinent to his ministry (2 Timothy 3:10). The Greek word for “fully known” means to “have understanding” but the Greek word implies following a road. To really comprehend something requires some mental traveling.

I suggest the biblical concept of “understanding” takes up several levels on our proposed mental taxonomy. But there is clearly a level beyond factual knowledge that has to do with being able to define or rephrase a concept. Whereas knowledge is concerned more with your ability to retain a fact, comprehension is concerned with being able to explain a fact.

“Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue” (1 Corinthians 14:19).

Five words of understanding could actually teach others. The word here for “understanding” is a Greek word synonymous with “mind”—implying power of mind rather than just sheer memory capacity. This kind of understanding allows you to rephrase the knowledge in such a way that you could teach it to someone else—at least to define it in a few clear words.

We read about this exact thing in Nehemiah 8. Ezra and some ministers were reading from God’s law to a group of people who could only understand physical knowledge. Verse 8 reads: “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” They read clearly, they “gave the sense” of what it was saying, and they caused others to “understand the reading.”

Can you give someone the sense of the facts you’re learning—to help them understand it?

Analysis: Examine Components

As we learn something more deeply, we can actually begin to understand the pieces that comprise a particular concept. If you’re trying to understand how a particular machine works, you understand it far more deeply when you understand how each part inside it works.

Ephesians 3, though describing spiritual knowledge, presents this principle: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (verses 17-19).

This level of understanding is not just the ability to put something in your own words but to understand it in every direction—“the breadth, and length, and depth, and height.” Can you measure each component of the concept? Can you see it from all sides?

“Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts” (Isaiah 28:9). Clearly, knowledge and understanding are key to spiritual maturity. But notice the next verse: “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.”

Facts are made up of “here a little” and “there a little” components. Understanding each precept and each line helps understand the whole.

Synthesis: Make Connections

Isaiah 28:10 also teaches us that we need to be able to take separate “lines” and “precepts” and put them together. Making these kinds of connections with any kind of knowledge can be described as “synthesis”—based on a Greek word meaning “put together.”

A similar Greek word is found in Luke 2 when it is translated “understanding”: “And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers [replies]” (verses 46-47).

This is about a 12-year-old Jesus. His questions revealed an ability to put things together in a profound way. Those in the temple were astonished at His “understanding,” which is the Greek word synesis—literally meaning a flowing together. It brings to mind the image of two rivers flowing together and meeting.

People who can synthesize information can take information from one “thought river” and follow it, while they can follow another “thought river” until the two converge. Making those connections is a deep form of understanding, which leads into the final category on our learning chart.

Creation: Build, Design

The deepest form of understanding brings us into the realm of the biblical term “wisdom.” Wisdom is a study in and of itself; it has many facets. Again, we’re dwelling on physical knowledge here (confined to what is possible through the human spirit), and the Bible mentions this too. Moses was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22). He didn’t just have factual knowledge, but he had learned things deeply—even as pertained to physical knowledge available from the dominant empire at the time.

At this depth, creative efforts are possible. In fact, creation requires the deepest level of understanding something. It is a form of “synthesis,” putting things together, but it is deeper than just knowing how things connect. It’s creating from those connections.

The Bible credits God’s creative excellence to His wisdom (Psalm 104:24; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15).

Proverbs 24:3 states: “Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established.”

God created these creative capacities into the human spirit, and He can also increase those capacities through His Spirit. This happened for those working on aspects of the tabernacle in ancient Israel: God gave them wisdom “in all manner of workmanship” (Exodus 31:3, 6; 35:26, 31, 35; 36:1-2). That requires an incredibly deep understanding of how to make something physically.

When God gave Solomon a uniquely divine level of wisdom, Solomon created a lot: for example, 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs (1 Kings 4:32). This wisdom even gave him understanding of the physical world around him: “And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes” (verse 33). This wisdom surely motivated him to acquire a variety of knowledge and comprehension, as well as a great deal of understanding the parts that made up the whole and how to understand the whole by its parts.

Solomon’s proverbs are a giant advertisement for being motivated to improve the mind (Proverbs 1:1-3). Verse 5 says a “wise man will … increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.” We have to apply ourselves to this. Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom ….” This also requires the fear of God (Proverbs 1:7), which means a teachability.

Verse 4 says his proverbs are to “give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.” There’s a complexity of thought—layers, you could say—to being wise. It’s not complicated, but it is complex.

Which Way For Our Chart?

“Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Proverbs 20:5). This is a habit of mind for the deep thinker. A man of understanding—whatever the subject—knows how to dive deep and draw things out.

If you look up visual representations of Bloom’s taxonomy, some of the charts start at the top and work down—which is a great way to visualize the idea of depth. Some illustrations are the other way, showing the most basic levels at the bottom (like a foundation) and working upward. Since we’re revising this chart from a biblical perspective, let’s consider which way our chart should go.

We’ve used terms like digging, thinking deeply, bottoming out, as opposed to things being at a surface level, and we’ve read scriptures about being “rooted and grounded.” So to me it makes sense for the chart to go down. Romans 11:33 also reads: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”

But the Bible also says God’s thoughts are far higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9) and that “[w]isdom is too high for a fool” (Proverbs 24:7).

Perhaps the most apt scripture to illustrate this is Psalm 92:12: “The righteous … shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” A cedar of Lebanon’s roots grow as deep as its height grows upward. Perhaps that’s the best visual representation of these mental levels or tiers that we’ve discussed. The deeper you dig into something—if done right—the grander you can grow!