As a former public school educator, one of the things that disturbed me was the lack of moral character that existed in the classroom. All students were focused on self. If any thing was left lying around, rather than finding the true owner students would declare an object as their own. They called each other disrespectful names, and were often infatuated with acts of violence. Rarely, did any Christian character shine from the students. My guess is that any public school teacher could tell you that they rarely see true Christian character exhibited in the classroom.
So, in one respect I’m not surprised to hear someone finally declare that Bible Illiteracy is on the rise. It’s gotten so bad that people have started quoting some common phrases of figurative language as Bible scripture. With a simple search on the internet, it’s not hard to find a plethora of articles addressing biblical illiteracy like this one from a few years ago: Why Johnny Can’t Read the Bible.
Sadly, I’m not convinced that the general church in America is really encouraging people to do anything about this. People just don’t seem to have any interest in opening the Bible to read with their family, especially with their children anymore. We often hear about the family Bible being kept on the table; we often hear about how that very Bible is just another dust collector. We’ve gotten to the point where people say a good sounding phrase that sounds good and then pass it off as something from the Bible without any significant challenge.
This is a disturbing.
So how can you help? Basically, the same thing people did it before there was a such thing as TV ministry, Radio ministry, or an Internet ministry.
- Read the Bible daily.
- Seek out resources that don’t distort the Word of God.
- Connect with the Scriptures you read.
- Use Topical Indexes to find out how the Bible addresses common life issues.
- Learn to put John 4:1-5 into practice.
- Memorize scripture.
- Of course let’s not forget, use Bible Drill Sheets to improve Bible Literacy.
And here’s a great way to learn…Do something with what your read in the Bible. Sharing your faith and trust in God’s Word will do at least two things, build the Kingdom of God and improve your own Biblical Literacy.
