‘Knowing enough’ isn’t the issue. The challenge we face is less one of biblical literacy (knowing enough of the stories and content of the text) and more one of biblical fluency (being able to navigate, understand and apply the biblical story to our lives, our stories).
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is not returning empty. This is God’s word, God’s promise, we are talking about.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I pur- pose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11). God’s promises are sure and, as Isaiah says elsewhere, “stand forever” (40:8). So why ask the question?
I ask it because in teaching about the Bible (both in the congrega- tion and in the wider church) I’ve observed what seems to be a sharp and growing disconnect between the biblical word and the Bible-believing person. The question is: How is the word that God sends forth received? The reality is that we are an increasingly biblically challenged people. The “we” here are churchgo- ers (both the regular and the occa- sional or the casual), and nonchurch- goers (both “seekers” and “nones”) alike.
22 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
Few people (the so-called experts included) know the Bible back-to- front perfectly. As much as any other trait, we all share this challenge. The reality is that biblical fluency is something of a spectrum, and we are all on it somewhere. This state of affairs need not be cause for lamenting or bemoaning, but we do need to pay attention to this reality. We simply don’t know the Bible (its stories, laws, characters, etc.) all that well. But this present reality is probably not so differ- ent from the way things were even in the “golden age” of American Christendom. Take a moment to answer this three-question biblical literacy quiz: n What are the two symbols of peace that appear at the end of the Noah story? n In what book of the Bible does the golden rule (“love your neighbor as yourself”) appear? n When Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever- flowing stream,” from which biblical book was he quoting? Answers: Olive branch and dove; Leviticus 19:18 (and Matthew 22:39); Amos 5:24. Without worrying about how you did, ask yourself: “Does knowing (or not knowing) these specific details make me a ‘better’ Christian, a better person?”
“Knowing enough” isn’t the issue. The challenge we face is less one of biblical literacy (knowing enough of the stories and content of the text) and more one of biblical fluency (being able to navigate, understand and apply the biblical story to our lives, our stories).
If this is the goal as we understand both the issue of biblical illiteracy and the primary purpose of the wor- ship and educational lives of our congregations, perhaps we can begin
to realize the promise of Isaiah 55:11 differently and anew. The word will return, accomplishing the purpose for which God sends it forth.
Do people care?
First things first. Does it really mat- ter to our people whether or not they know the biblical story?
In general, it would seem, most folks aren’t concerned about their biblical fluency. Rather, they care about being connected to faith and spirituality in-and-through the church. While this may be an overstatement and certainly doesn’t apply to everyone, there is a reliance on the Bible as an object of faith rather than as the source of it, and a culture of expertise that has arisen around the Bible-as-object. A simplistic common response to the issue of biblical fluency might be something like: “You tell me, pastor, what I need to know about the Bible and that is good enough for me.” In other words, someone else can
manage the text and its content. Four years ago, research firm Barna Group declared that biblical literacy is neither a current reality nor a goal in the U.S. Its findings, related to Bible knowledge and application, indicate that little prog- ress, if any, is being made toward assisting people to become more biblically literate. “Bible reading has become the
religious equivalent of sound-bite journalism,” Barna concluded. “When people read from the Bible they typically open it, read a brief passage without much regard for the context, and consider the primary thought or feeling that the passage provided. If they are comfortable with it, they accept it; otherwise, they deem it interesting but irrel- evant to their life and move on. “There is shockingly little growth evident in people’s understanding of
SHUTTERSTOCK
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