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Jen Wilkin has spent decades advocating for biblical literacy. Through her books, podcasts, and numerous speaking and teaching engagements each year, she aims to guide women not just to a deeper understanding of who God is, but into a more intimate relationship with Him. Wilkin will be the featured speaker at the Empower Conference women’s session, and she recently spoke to the Texan about how the closer walk with God many are seeking is closer than they may think.
You wrote a book with JT English titled, You Are a Theologian. How do you define theologian, and what’s the connection between theology and knowing and loving God well?
JW: The word theologian means “one who has words about God.” Everyone has words about God—Christians, Hindus, Muslims, even atheists and agnostics. The question is whether we have words about God that are true. For the believer in Christ the question is, “Are our words about God distinctly Christian? Are they accurate to how He has revealed Himself?”
All the data is showing us many Christians cannot articulate even basic Christian beliefs. If our words about God are not accurate, our love of God is revealed as shallow or false. … We make a habit of learning about those we love. When we don’t display an interest in knowing about God, our love for Him must come into question.
And here’s the best part: to know Him is to love Him. The more we learn about Him, the more our love for Him is fanned into flame and the better we are able to imitate Him as we were created to do.
Many Christians can remember a time when God’s Word came to life for them. When did that moment happen for you?
JW: I have a degree in English. I grew up around the Bible, but no one had ever told me that all the skills I had learned to understand English literature were useful for understanding the Bible. It wasn’t until I wandered into a Precept class looking for more depth in my late 20s that I realized we were allowed to read the Bible as we would any other book. … It was common to attend a Bible study and have very little contact with the Bible, much less learn tools to understand it. That Precept study gave me permission to utilize tools I already knew how to use and to help other women to do the same.
Your ministry, in a sense, is based on taking people on an ever-deeper dive into God’s Word. How does that journey feed into the biblical call to evangelize?
JW: Many women come to faith after being invited to Bible study. … Unbelievers think the Bible is boring and outdated, and a well-conceived Bible study shows them this is profoundly false. Candidly, it does the same thing for believers who carry this misconception.
Perhaps the most important tie between Bible study and evangelism is the Great Commission. Jesus seamlessly connects the work of evangelism to discipleship. Make disciples, baptize them, teach them to observe all that I have commanded. Too often we reduce evangelism to making converts instead of making disciples. But if we are to fulfill the Great Commission, we need more than a gospel presentation. We need to be able to teach all that Jesus commanded. In a full-blown Bible literacy crisis, the church is currently limping in this regard. That’s why I do what I do. We can’t teach others what we ourselves barely know.
What are some practical steps anyone can take to more consistently and effectively study God’s Word?
JW: Many of us think any form of engagement with the Bible is good engagement, but this is demonstrably false. The most common report I hear when women are exposed to literacy-building tools is, “I’ve been in church my whole life, and no one has taught me this.” Instead, they were taught to have a 15-minute quiet time each morning, using devotional or topical material that does all the work for them. … Devotional and topical content is not foundational like a Bible reading plan or a line-by-line study.
In my book Women of the Word, and in my studies, I introduce a comprehensive method for growing in Bible literacy. Here’s the simplest first step toward achieving it: Read entire books of the Bible from start to finish repetitively. … Read through in your favorite translation and then start reading in different translations. Listen to the book read aloud on an app. Even better, read it aloud yourself. Copy it out by hand. As you do this, the shape of the book begins to come into focus. Before you start reading repetitively, do a little digging to find out who wrote the book, to whom it was written, when it was written, and in what style. Any study Bible will have this information for you. Then, put away the study Bible and read repetitively without study notes.
What’s one thing you’ve learned to this point in your ministry you know you’ll never forget?
JW: The Bible is a miracle. I know that may sound crashingly obvious, but I can say at this point in my life and ministry that I have witnessed that miracle firsthand. Think about it: 66 books by over 40 authors, written across 1,500 years in three languages. One consistent message. The odds of this are astronomical. But that only scratches the surface of the perfect interconnectedness of the words, symbols, and images. When Christians say they need a miracle to build their faith, I want to shout, “You’re holding it in your hand! You have access to it on your laptop and your phone! You own multiple copies!” It lies scattered around us like so much manna in the wilderness. We have only to take it up and receive the miracle of our daily bread.
