{"id":2112,"date":"2019-12-16T22:19:27","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T06:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaymenslounge.com\/?p=2112"},"modified":"2020-03-10T13:42:50","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T20:42:50","slug":"an-open-letter-to-christians-who-dont-read-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelaymenslounge.com\/an-open-letter-to-christians-who-dont-read-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to Christians Who Don’t Read the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the first post in a series from Dr Les Hardin, the second, \u201cJesus, The Word, and \u201cA Word\u201d can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Christians Who Don’t Read the Bible,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bible of my grandfather rests prominently atop the filing cabinet in my central-Florida office.  Leslie Ewell Clinkenbeard (\u201cPa\u201d to his family) was a simple farmer and mechanic, but served the church faithfully as an elder for over 40 years.  Four preachers officiated his funeral.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Every Christmas Eve the extended family gathered in his\n2-bedroom farmhouse for a traditional Christmas meal and the opening of\npresents.  But before there was any\ngift-giving in his home he insisted that we read the Christmas story from his\nrather large, leather-bound, King James Bible, the one that sits in my office.  It was a sacred tradition observed every year\nin his home.  He was imitating the\npractice of his fathers who annually recited the story of the Hebrews\u2019\ndeliverance from Egypt on the night of Passover (Exod. 10:2, 13:8).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Bible shaped him. \nIt wasn\u2019t the only one he had, but it was the one he used the most.  My grandfather wasn\u2019t a \u201cKJV-only\u201d guy.  He wasn\u2019t prejudiced against other\ntranslations.  At his baptism someone\ngave him a Bible, that Bible happened to be a KJV, and that\u2019s the one that he\nused, studied, and quoted.  He read it\noften.  He wrote notes in the\nmargins.  He read a passage from it every\nmorning and meditated on it throughout the day while he was in the field\nplanting, plowing, and repairing fences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after Pa\u2019s death one of my relatives (who was\nreaping the fruit of some bad life choices) said that he wanted that\nBible.  When I asked him why, he said,\n\u201cIt\u2019s done him a lot of good, and I figured it might do me a lot of good.\u201d  I reminded him that any benefits Pa got from\nthis Bible came from reading<\/em> it and living <\/em>it, not from owning it. Pa was a doer<\/em> of the Word, not just a hearer<\/em> (James 1:22-25).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you see? Proximity\nto the Bible does not equate to knowing the Bible.  <\/strong>Simply having<\/em> a Bible doesn\u2019t mean that you know<\/em> the Bible, or that you live<\/em>\nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look around at many in the Church today and you\u2019d think few\npeople know this.  Scripture is\neverywhere around us.  It\u2019s on our\nphones, on our calendars, available instantly online, and that pesky quote that\nyou know<\/em> is in the Bible but just\ncan\u2019t put your fingers on can be easily found by typing it into the Google\nsearch engine.  (I know the Bible says\n\u201cwithout vision the people perish,\u201d and I think it\u2019s in Proverbs, but I can\nnever remember exactly where.  But why\ncommit it to memory when Google will tell me exactly where it is?  Prov. 29:18).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We (and I mean the People of God here) have Bibles all\naround us, and we still struggle with our ignorance of the Scriptures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been teaching in the Bible College setting for almost\ntwo decades now.  I have students from\nall walks of life, but the bulk of my students come from churches and youth\ngroups.  They\u2019re good, eager students who\nare concerned to know what their place is in the economy of God and how they\ncan help Christ advance his Kingdom.  But\nthey don\u2019t always notice that knowing Scripture is an integral part of all\nthis.  Why has this seldom occurred to\nthem?  Has no one taught them?  Was it not modeled<\/em> for them by either their parents or their church leaders?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result there\u2019s sometimes no desire<\/em> to know the Word.  A\n2016 Barna research poll shows that nearly 30% of practicing American\nChristians don\u2019t read the bible any more than once a month.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a famine of knowing the Word in the modern church.  Churches in my region have gravitated more and more to the exposition of better living supported by key Bible texts than a systematic exposition of Kingdom living.  As I made clear in The Spirituality of Jesus <\/em>(Kregel, 2009), the synagogue services of Jesus\u2019 day privileged Scripture reading as the main part of their worship.  They read the Bible and if you were lucky they would explain <\/em>it.  Today we tend to explain the Scriptures at length, and if you\u2019re lucky, we\u2019ll put the verses on the screen.  Jesus\u2019 faith community privileged knowing<\/em> the text over understanding<\/em> it.  And by knowing it, Jesus came to understand it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t quite put my finger on where this all began.  Other scholars\u2014those who study American\nChristianity and its history\u2014are better suited to recount the myriad\nfactors.  But all around me are cheeky\nslogans and turn-of-phrase spirituality. \nOur attempts to boil the faith down to what can be posted on Instagram\nhave robbed us of a deeper knowledge. \n\u201cDeep calls to deep\u201d Scripture says (Ps. 42:7; did I just Google\nthat?).  We\u2019re not touching the deeper\nheart of God when we reach from the shallows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re concerned that your life and faith are reflected\nin these comments, ask yourself the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n