OK, OK, despite the title of this post, I fully admit that the vast majority of modern day Christian are biblically illiterate.
Most cannot name the books of the Bible or find Scripture verses when asked. Shockingly few know how many apostles there were, or how many plagues, and what the difference is between Noah and Moses, or John the Baptist and John the Apostle. Aside from some of these historical facts of Scripture, the vast majority have no clue about the major teachings of Scripture regarding the Gospel, the atonement, the church, the Trinity, or most of the other central doctrines of the Bible.
But guess what?
Biblical illiteracy is not a problem
I believe that Biblical illiteracy is not a problem. Widespread biblical illiteracy is not that big of a deal to me.
Biblical illiteracy is not a problem. The real problem is that Christians don’t even put into practice the little tiny bit of Scripture knowledge we do have!
As I wrote previously, the entire Bible can be summed up in 24 words:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength, and your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
The problem is not that people don’t know the Bible. The problem is that we don’t even follow or practice the little bits we do know.
Jesus said that the entire law and prophets were summed up with those words above (cf. Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27-28).
If we do not even attempt to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, or make any attempt to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we do not need more Bible knowledge crammed into our heads.
We don’t need more Bible facts; we just need to get out and put our love of God into practice by showing love to others.
Loving Others
For most of us, this begins at home with showing sacrificial love to our spouse and children. It means giving up our desires and needs to help achieve the hopes and dreams of those in our family.
Somewhere along the way, showing love to others requires that we also show love to our neighbors. It is a tragic reality of most Christians that while we spend hours at church hearing and studying about loving and serving the community, very few followers of Jesus know the names of the people who live in the homes on either side of them, let alone the needs, worries, and concerns that they have about their health, they job, their marriage, their children, or their finances. So along with loving our families, we can also making loving our neighbors a high priority.
I believe that while we are loving others, it is then that God helps bring greater insight and understanding to the Scriptures. It is while we are loving our neighbors that the stories and doctrines and facts about Scripture come to life. It is while we are loving others that the Holy Spirit illuminates our mind with the meaning, intent, and proper application of the Bible.
If the church wants to combat the increasing biblical illiteracy of our modern age, the solution is not more teaching, but more loving.
Well said, Jeremy! Yes, there is a major disconnect between supposedly knowing what the Bible says and doing what it says. As I have previously mentioned, at one point a few years ago we had two pastors, one seminary dean and one Christian college professor all living within half a block of us. None of them knew their neighbors or were even friendly. We introduced ourselves to all of them, and received a very cool reception from all of them.
It’s real easy to preach, teach or say that the “Bible says”, but no one cares what we’re saying. They notice what we do, how we live and how we treat other people. Of course Jesus taught, but his lessons were often object lessons. Instead of saying something about loving those in the margins, he did it in front of everyone. Instead of saying love our neighbors, let’s do it lavishly, in front of everyone. Trust me, they do say “What is this new thing?”
That’s partly because of the ‘us vs the world’ mentality shared by many fundamental Christians. Or they believe God will punish unbelievers to eternal conscious torture so why should they take the time to love and forgive ‘their enemies’ because God won’t love and forgive them either but rather cast them in hell.
Yes, I look back over some of my sermons from the past and shudder at how I thought I had the one true understanding of the Bible. Part of my problem was that I did have this “us vs them” mentality. Now that I am building friendships with people who are not like me, I am gaining new perspective on life, theology, and what it means to follow Jesus.
Christ has awakened in you and you have ‘risen from the dead’. If only more and more will awaken to these truths. I know your blog is helping do just that. It’s amazing when we can finally see the great contrast between truly following Jesus and religiously worshiping his Image.
Amen to that!
If you were raised and trained to love, then you ARE love. That is what heaven is, love all the time, forever and ever. 🙂
Yes, and thankfully, Jesus leads us into love as we follow him.
This is the big disconnect that exists in teaching versus disciplining and the reason why we are not seeing the kingdom in it’s full glory in the church today. This is also why some who have completed seminary look back and call it cemetery. Should we be teaching more with out first seeing what we have learned come to fruition first? Is this what Jesus would have done? Why is there a problem with leaders teaching and showing (modeling) real life applications in the context of the world today to his or her students? These are obviously all rhetorical questions!
They may be rhetorical, but they are good questions! I am glad I sent to seminary, but not because of what I learned there. It was while in seminary (and despite seminary) that I began to see that following Jesus is about loving others.
As I read this what came to mind was if a person, who claims Christ as savior, has no interest in reading God’s loveletter…how will they be capable of displaying the sacrificial love necessary to reach others? I know that the american church is either totally lacking in church teaching thus producing illiterate Christians, or they are obsessed with indoctrinating the “faithful” with biblical knowledge as if that would give them a heart for the hurting, the lost. As with many aspects of the “walk”, there needs to be a balance. I just can’t get past thinking that someone who doesn’t care enough to know how many gospels are in the bible, that they would have the sensativity to love others, and to give them reason for the hope that is in them.
Hmm. Interesting points. I do think that love for God should lead us to want to know Him better, and lead us to read His Word. Absolutely true. I value the Bible more than ever as my love for God deepens. But I also know that my love for God is not deepening because I know the Bible more. My love for God is deepening because I am following Jesus more in loving others.
Your disclaimer at the top is funny. It reminds me of a church we attended a few years back. They prided themselves on their great knowledge of the Bible. Spending a little time there, however, revealed that most of their Bible knowledge came from a few select books, books about the Bible, not from the Bible.
Their books about the Bible focused on parts of the Bible that supposedly “proved’ what the denomination believed. They didn’t know much about the rest of the Bible, especially those parts that seemed to say something different about their denominational beliefs.
Yes, that is true. We all do that, I suppose. I have wanted for years to study the Prophets in more detail, but instead, I just keep studying the Gospels and the Epistles… Sigh.
Us humans have this misconception and define love as emotion. A feeling of ooey gooey happiness towards others. We cry out oh God show me how to love others we recite verses do studied on having the heart of Jesus in the church basement. And don’t get it. We don’t understand because when we apply this ooey gooey definition of love to God, His Word, His actions, and His motivations It’s impossible because we are using the wrong dictionary. God defines love as action, not feeling. I am not sure why we think God needs to change the meaning of words for us. Especially this word, this love word considering God is love doesn’t He get to say what love is? insisting we need to feel a certain way towards people to act in love we affectively put God in a box, seal the lid, and put a stack of encyclopedias on top of it. God can’t reveal Himself to us when we try to tell him who and what He is. Why should He try I instruct children who are telling the teacher He is wrong.
Random lesson I learned on acting in love.
If you see a homeless person and you have a few dollars give it to them. What they choose to spend it on doesn’t matter. We can’t make a judgement call on if they will use it to feed an addiction or not just because of their homelessness. Our feelings about the “type” of people who are homeless can not become an issue if we act in love. You may think they need a you to buy them a hamburger hamburger when what they need is tooth paste. Sometimes the gift you give when you do this is not the actually money, but something of far greater value. You give them something they rarely if ever get. The simple dignity to make to their own choice. That can be a game changer.
See I don’t recall Jesus ever hesitating to make sacrifices for people because of His feelings. From the first miracle of making water to wine(“woman, don’t you know my hour has not arrived) It doesn’t seem He really felt like it. But for the sake of the wedding, His mother, the wedding party He did it though it could have not worked well for Him. We see another moment like this in the garden before His crucifixion “anyway this cup can pass from my lips?” To the point of sweating blood His dispair a feelings of not wanting to act in this sacrificial love. Then He resolves “Not My will but Your will be done”. That was His game making decision to give us the choice to accept Grace or leave it.
Point being love don’t have a thing to do with how you feel about someone. It’s merely about what you do for them.
Yes. Sometimes, love is a choice more than a feeling. And sometimes, as you point out, love is simply shown to others because they deserved to be loved, regardless of how they might respond or take advantage of our love. God loves us all the time, but we take advantage of His love in infinite ways.