No One Reads the Bible

HOW BIBLICAL ILLITERACY IS TRENDING, EVEN AMONG CHRISTIANS

Bible literacy, or “basic knowledge of the people, stories, and themes that point to the coming of Christ to save the world,” is at an all-time low.¹ Going to church doesn’t even help the issue. According to Robert B. Sloan, President of Houston Christian University, “We get some interesting pop psychology and leadership exhortations, but it is fairly unusual to enter a Christian church and hear the minister take a piece of scripture, read it, explain it, teach it, and apply it.”² If we make it to church, and many of us don’t, we’re not encouraged to open the Bible for ourselves. Pastors are content to provide and parishioners are content to consume the “inspirational high” without knowing the full context of what the Bible actually means.

The statistics are staggering: “two-thirds of Americans identify themselves as Christians, yet only six percent of that group embrace the great majority of principles and commands from the Bible.”³ We believe there is something to be gained by adopting the title of Christian, yet we let ourselves off the hook when it comes to reading, understanding, and applying the Word. Professor and author Kenneth Birding says this discrepancy isn’t benign like we might assume:

Christians used to be known as “people of one book.” Sure, they read, studied and shared other books. But the book they cared about more than all others combined was the Bible. They memorized it, meditated on it, talked about it and taught it to others. We don’t do that anymore, and in a very real sense, we’re starving ourselves to death.⁴

Our perpetual starvation is made worse because we’re numb to the fact that it’s happening. There are many factors that keep us from actively pursuing God’s Word like distractions (ahem, social media, anyone?), misaligned priorities, and being too busy.⁵ All of these can be small, daily hindrances but they cumulate to a skeleton-like faith that’s brittle and hollow.

“Two-thirds of Americans identify themselves as Christians, yet only six percent of that group embrace the great majority of principles and commands from the Bible.”

Additionally, knowing the Bible even on a surface level has historically provided a general sense of right and wrong that has kept us safe and well-adjusted. Think: loving our neighbor and refusing to lie. Without that, we’re getting our moral compass from somewhere else—namely, ourselves. We’re apt to abide by our own truth sourced predominantly from emotions which fluctuate greatly. Our default setting is motivated by what’s in our best interest, so no wonder there is such disunity when we all put the individual first.

If you’re biblically illiterate, the question is: why? Some of us fall into the category of simple ignorance; we don’t know how to dig into the Bible, but we’d like to. Others of us, though, willfully ignore the Bible and it’s understanding because we know that we’d then be accountable to do what it says. We’d be without excuse. On the other hand, for those who do read the Bible regularly growing in knowledge and understanding will continue to be a lifelong pursuit, too. God is infinite so we’ll never exhaust the depth of what it means to know Him. In our digital age, we have more resources and study tools than anyone has ever had, ever. How foolish of us to keep spiritually starving when abundance is at our fingertips.

^{1 & 3} denisonforum.org/biblical-living/bible-reading-unprecedented-low-america/
² robertbsloan.com/2013/03/11/but-if-not-the-miracle-of-dunkirk/
^{4 & 5} biola.edu/blogs/biola-magazine/2014/the-crisis-of-biblical-illiteracy