Learning the Bible!

For years I've complained that churches don't teach the Bible.  That seminaries don't effectively teach Bible content!  That endless topical sermons in our churches are contributing to an epidemic of biblical illiteracy in the Christian community.  Here is some good stuff on this topic my Michael Bull.

“Pastor, if the local atheist knows the Bible and understands its basic implications for morality, society, politics, education, economics, history and science better than the people you instruct every week, and most likely he does, you are failing them.”

It seems to me that good Christians go off to Bible college and seminary little suspecting that these institutions are places where they teach you how not to read a book. 

Certainly, an understanding of the original languages and cultures is helpful, but somehow the modern mind takes a book that is far more than the sum of its parts and teaches it as parts. For a start, we don’t read any book like that. If we, as Christians, believe that the Bible has a single author, why would an intelligent, committed and passionate minister of the gospel tell me that Jesus’ crown of thorns has nothing to do with the thorns in Genesis 3? Why? Was it because he was taught that the Bible was written by idiots, or was it because he was taught by idiots? Please note that this man is not an idiot. He, like just about all ministers today, has been trained in a tradition that takes young heads, cuts off their ears and gouges out their eyes. They come out deaf and colorblind. They are not qualified to teach the Bible as it really is.

Read the entire article here.

On Interviews & Testimonies, Part I

I've often been uncomfortable with the way we interview people to discover if they are believers.  My concern goes back many years.  It probably began decades ago as I was sitting with my young children as they were being interviewed by elders for the Lord's Table.  But it includes my participation in countless membership interviews conducted by church sessions and school boards.  So the problems I see are not endemic to interviewing children, but include the process of ascertaining the status of adults as well.

Part of the problem is that we easily settle for questions and answers that use simplistic slogans.  If we hear the interviewed adults or children say the right words, we accept their "testimony" without much more inquiry.  There are any number of evangelical code words and phrases that we learn so that we can communicate to one another that we are part of the same tribe.  Which phrases and terms we use depends on the branch of the church with which we are associated.  Some of the more common ones are:

Asking Jesus into my heart
Praying to receive Jesus
Personal relationship with God and/or Jesus
I was saved when. . .
I got saved. . .
My personal Lord and Savior

There are more, of course.  But you get the idea.  It's not so much that these phrases are wrong or dangerous in themselves. They can indeed helpfully summarize a Christian's experience and present commitment.  My problem is not that people use these catch words to give testimony to their faith.  My problem is that when these words are phrases are absent many interviewers are very likely to question the authenticity of that person's faith.  What often happens in interviews is that we fish for these terms and phrases, asking question after question hoping to hear something familiar.  Once we hear our favorite expression we breath a sigh of relieve and move on.  Here is a real life example.

As Good as it Gets

Okay, so I'm listening to the news at the top of the hour and they are talking about something new in the St. Louis city school district. This is a public school district that has been de-certified because of its poor performance. But fresh ideas are in the air. Change is on the way. People are excited. A new life for the school is just around the corner. A school official was proud and hopeful, saying, "We are implementating programs that will. . . "

Sigh.

It's called the English language. You might want to learn it before you attempt to teach it by implementating programs.

Father Knows Best?

HT: Mark Horne

Will Homeschooling be Illegal in CA?

Maybe. If this court decision is allowed to stand, homeschooling will be illegal in the state of California.

Download the pdf of the court case here.

Consider this quotation from the case: "A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare."

Scary. Statism is alive and well in CA.

The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has some information on this, too.