Bible literacy aim of new study

JACKSON, Tenn.—For decades Southern Baptists have mourned biblical illiteracy among children and adults in local churches and more broadly among the general population. Former Texan George Guthrie experienced this frustration firsthand as a Baptist college professor who found incoming freshmen averaging just 57 percent on a basic biblical literacy exam he offers at the beginning of each semester. 

While Guthrie teaches at a school where the average ACT score is over 25 and most students grew up attending Southern Baptist churches, his results were consistent with what other professors reported at top Christian universities across the United States.

It’s not that the multiple-choice questions he asks are terribly hard: Which of these books would you find in the New Testament? Whom did Pontius Pilate release during Jesus’ trial? How many temptations did Jesus experience in the wilderness? Where would you look in the Bible to find the Sermon on the Mount?

Compared to a catechism used before the founding of America which taught children to remember “K is for Korah, God’s wrath he defied and low to devour him the earth opened wide,” the test Guthrie composed should be a breeze.

Unfortunately, the track record among older adults is no better. “Ask one hundred church members if they have read the Bible today and eighty-four of them will say ‘no.’ Ask them if they have read the Bible at least once in the past week, and sixty-eight of them will say ‘no,’” Guthrie wrote. 

“Even more disconcerting, ask those one hundred church members if reading or studying the Bible has made any significant difference in the way they live their lives. Only thirty-seven out of one hundred will say ‘yes,’” he reported.

“Since we as Christians should be ‘people of the Book,’ something is wrong with this picture. We should know the Bible well, but we really don’t. All of the polls show those who claim to be evangelical Christians only do marginally better than their nonbelieving neighbors when asked questions about the content of the Bible, and a biblical view of the world is not making inroads into how we think about and live our lives.”

Ultimately, Guthrie said, “Our biblical illiteracy hurts us personally, hurts our churches, hurts our witness, and thus, hurts the advancement of the gospel in the world.”

Two Southern Baptists have teamed up with LifeWay Christian Resources to recover biblical literacy among a people known for their allegiance to the Word of God. Knowing that the challenge requires an air assault and a ground war, Guthrie and Alabama pastor David Platt are enlisting church leaders and especially families to emphasize the goal of an initiative known as “Read the Bible for Life.”

“As a pastor, I’m fighting the air war,” Platt explained during a recent workshop promoting the campaign. Like thousands of Southern Baptist pastors, Platt said he exposes those attending worship services to the Word of God week by week. “But if all they’re doing is sitting in a seat and listening to me, once a week, preach the Word, it’s not going to soak in where biblical orientation can take hold.”

That’s where the ground war comes in, Platt said. “Through Sunday School classes or small groups—however the structure looks—this is how the gospel will spread through the ends of the earth with disciples making disciples more than events where you go listen to good Bible teachers.”

Platt said the focus on church and worship gatherings tends to “squash out spreading the Word in the seats or pews.” To make a difference, individual believers must “fight the ground war hard core,” he told church leaders April 15-16. “Wherever you have spheres of influence, saturate with the Word.”

He and award-winning musician and author Michael Card joined Guthrie, the Benjamin W. Perry Professor of Bible at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., to train 700 church leaders and students to utilize the curriculum in their own ministry settings. Nine of Union’s Christian studies faculty led breakout sessions on related topics, with podcasts available at uu.edu/events/ReadtheBibleforLife/.

“We all need to realize this is a spiritual dynamic,” Guthrie related. “It is not a natural thing for people to orient their lives around the Word of God, an ancient book, rather than go with natural currents of the culture.” With that in mind, he urged those leading out in the fight for biblical literacy to pray consistently that God would bring about a deep commitment to the Word.

B&H Publishing Group, the trade publishing arm of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, in partnership with Union’s Ryan Center for Biblical Studies, has already released Guthrie’s book “Read the Bible for Life: Your Guide to Understanding and Living God’s Word.” It features 16 narrative conversations the author conducted with biblical scholars, discussing basic tools and attitudes needed to read the Bible more effectively and includes several daily Bible reading plans and interactive application.

The companion video curriculum is designed specifically for small groups and includes creative teaching segments, interactive exercises and guest interviews with many of the scholars featured in the book.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach he’s recommending; some churches will utilize the curriculum in Sunday School or small groups, many will take advantage of individual reading plans and others will involve the whole congregation studying together. 

“You have to be obedient to what God calls you to do in your own life and your family and the ministry of teaching God has given you in the local church. Be available, and then make Spirit-led appeals in the church to consider some of the opportunities we’re talking about,” he told conference participants.

Guthrie described the nine-week curriculum as basic training, offering a 30-minute video-based instruction and the expectation that actual teachers—not just facilitators—will instruct class participants in that week’s assignment while students keep up with workbook lessons at home.

“It walks through a step-by-step process of how we read the Psalms, etc., and doesn’t go into great depth, but there are basic principles so that people will ask questions,” he explained. “If you’re reading about Gideon, you’ll ask how is God the hero of this story. What does this have to do with God’s covenant?” The book itself offers greater detail for those who want to study beyond the workbook.

Directing participants in the curriculum back to God as the source and subject of every biblical passage, Guthrie warns against viewing the Bible as a self-help book, looking primarily for what it says to or about our lives.

“It’s true that the Bible is relevant to us and should be applied to our lives, but we can discover its true relevance only to the extent that we encounter God through Scripture,” he writes in one workbook chapter. 

After receiving an orientation during the nine-week study, churches are encouraged to read through Scripture together over the course of a year, preferably while the pastor preaches through highlights in his messages.

“Obviously a pastor can’t preach everything, but you get the framework for the story of Scripture.” In the process, Guthrie said, students remember the principles they learned during the foundational study and hear those reinforced.

“We need people reading the Bible individually, discussing it in small groups and hearing dynamic messages on key passages, and then it starts coming together.”

In November LifeWay will release “Reading God’s Story: A Chronological Daily Bible” organized to make clear the step-by-step development of the biblical story and “A Reader’s Guide to the Bible,” featuring a one-year chronological Bible reading plan and brief commentary, coaching readers to apply the Scripture to life. Union University will be posting podcasts of the chronological readings for download by those who prefer to listen to Scripture being read.

Guthrie will serve as keynote speaker for a promotion of “Read the Bible for Life (RTB4L)” sponsored by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. The training is planned from 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. on Sept. 9 at First Baptist Church of Euless. Breakout sessions will be offered to apply RTB4L throughout all of church life. How to apply RTB4L to children’s ministry will be taught by Karen Kennemur, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary assistant professor for childhood education.

A session on using the approach with students will be led by Ken Lasater, a family approach session will be led by Lance Crowell, and “Connecting RTB4L with Your Sermons and Running a RTB4L Campaign in Your Church” will be led by Kenneth Priest along with Guthrie. Lasater, Crowell and Priest are SBTC ministry associates. A working lunch will be offered during the final breakout session and Guthrie will deliver the final keynote message to close the session.

While the SBTC’s training will help church leaders involve all ages in Bible study, Guthrie said he hopes to see parents teaching their own children instead of following a common trend of passing the buck to Sunday School teachers who have limited influence and time.

“We’ve been hustling to get the four main tools out there,” Guthrie said in answer to a question about additional age-graded resources. “What we’re doing in the first phase is to provide foundational tools for the church as a whole, though teenagers can certainly engage in the video curriculum and book as it is written at a level that is very readable,” he responded. 

When The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham utilized the curriculum, Platt and other staff members developed family devotion guides that track with the chronological reading plan and are making them available to download.

“My heart and David’s is the same in that I really believe the beginning place for all this is the family,” Guthrie shared. “If parents will read the Word, love the Word and live the Word in the context of their family, that’s the real foundation they need. In some ways that’s far more than any graded Sunday School.” 

Platt added: “That’s why we wanted to equip our heads of households in our church to walk their children through the Word together.” The four-page daily worship guides are based around the text for that week with a teaching guide to make the material applicable for preschoolers, children or youth; a prayer card for the nations; Scripture memory and worship song and a coloring page based on the lesson.

Ryan Center for Biblical Studies Director Ray Van Ness closed the April conference by holding up a copy of the 1615 edition of the Geneva Bible, reminding those present of the power of Scripture to change the world. 

“God has done this before in the church,” Van Ness said. “He is ready and willing to bless us in this Word.”
 
More information about the book, as well as other resources about the “Read the Bible for Life” project are available at readthebibleforlife.com. Guthrie’s blog and many of his interviews are available at blog.georgehguthrie.com.