Welcome to the Further Gospel Podcast, where we are all about sound doctrine for everyday people. On today's episode, we're talking about biblical illiteracy and the need for Christians to know their Bible. First thing I'll say is biblical illiteracy basically means you don't understand or know your Bible, how to understand the Bible, or you hear preaching and people say things and you go, oh, I guess that's true. And you don't have a lot of discernment about what is true because we are illiterate when it comes to the Bible. I am joined by my friend Dave Jenkins. He's the author of the new book, The Word Explored, the problem of biblical illiteracy and what to do about it. Dave, welcome to the For the Gospel podcast.
SPEAKER_01Man, it's an honor to be on this podcast. I love what you guys are doing. I love this podcast. I love to listen to it and enjoy it a lot. Thank you for inviting me, brother.
SPEAKER_00Awesome, man. Well, uh quick backstory. Two things. Number one, uh, I'm always thankful for you because way, way back when I just wanted a chance to write on a blog, and I loved to write and had uh been looking around for opportunities to do it and just help out wherever. And so I sent an email over to Servants of Grace, where you lead uh that ministry. And all I wanted was for someone to let me write a blog and not think I was a heretic because the last name stuff and all that, and you were so nice and you let me, and so I'll always be grateful for that. And also, it was an honor to get to write the forward for this book. And I am a huge fan of books that help people grow closer to Christ through his word. So a huge thank you, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was an honor to, you know. I told you I I I think I told you before this, before we even recorded it, maybe several times before, but I didn't even know who you were, and it didn't even matter because you're just another guy, you know, wanting to write. I was like, hey, that's cool. And then I found out who you were. I was like, that doesn't matter either, because you know, we're friends, so it was no, no.
SPEAKER_00Didn't you isn't that why you sent me the follow-up email? And it was like, I'm gonna need to check everything in here for heresy and make sure that you're the real deal. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_00Well, man, hey, let's jump right in. I want to ask you, first of all, uh, why is this even a problem? Biblical illiteracy, prove it. Prove that it's a problem. What are the stats?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so the stats, you know, according to George Barnett, fewer than half of all adults can name all name the four gospel accounts. Many Christians cannot identify two or three of the disciples. 60% of Americans cannot name five of the Ten Commandments. Uh, further stats um uh tell us the problem. 82% of Americans believe that God helps those who help themselves is in the Bible. Even among born-again Christians, 81% believe that the Bible teaches that the primary purpose in life is to take care of one's family. Whoa. 12% of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. Holy cow. Uh, people even think that Billy Graham, but this is another one bonus for our listeners. People think that Billy Graham wrote the Sermon on the Mount. Um, over 50%, seriously, dude, seriously, over 50% of graduating high school seniors thought Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. So we got Houston, we have a problem all across the board on salvation, on marriage, on creation. I mean, yeah, we just got a big and and when we talk about biblical literacy, what we have to be clear about, we're not talking, we're talking about like key facts and ideas. We're not talking about like having minute details, you know, known and memorized. We're talking about like not knowing um even just like the basic facts. And I always I always like to make clear too that you know, we're we're not talking about like you you have to have like immediate recall about those things, you know, just knowing where that is even in the Bible would make you um you know biblically literate. Um, but you know, so biblical literacy is a problem because people don't even know those basic things where where it is. And so we want to help them. We want to help them, you know, learn why, why and how to read the Bible, study the Bible, meditate on the Bible, do life with God's people.
SPEAKER_00Man, that's so good. And that is honestly what my next question is gonna be because those stats are pretty shocking. And I I gotta give some credit though for the Joan of Arc thing. I get it, people. Joan of Arc, you know, Noah's Ark. Let's show people a bone with that one. But overall, you know, why why um should we be motivated, or what should be our motivation for biblical literacy? You've obviously cased the problem. People are wrong about facts and details that are important. Um, like you said, we don't have to have immediate recall, but there's a general misconception about key truths that are key for salvation and knowledge of our God. So, what should be our motivation for becoming more biblically literate?
SPEAKER_01Well, there are certain things that God loves. He loves his word, he loves his people, and he loves his church. So, you know, gee, the church is the only people hashtag, you know, essential, right, today on Twitter or whatever. And the church is absolutely essential because Ephesians 5 tells us that the church is the only institution that Jesus bled and died and rose for and present, you know, is has presented before him, before God the Father is blameless. And so that's absolutely essential. Then the church is loved by God because Christ paid for it. Obviously, he he since you know he died and led for the church, the church consists of people that for whom Christ has led and died for, so that he loves his people because he's adopted them through Christ, he's called them his own, we are his and he is ours. And uh we're his friends, we're no longer his enemies, uh, we're no longer dead in our trespasses and sins, but made alive together by by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. Um praise God for that, right? So he loves his word because you know he he it's it's it's uh Thomas Watson said that it uh the scripture is a love letter from God. And so God loves his word, he delights over it, it tells a story of God from you know Genesis to Revelation. It's all about telling man about Christ and the Redeemer that has come and will come and you know now has come and has finished insufficient work for us. So that what does that do for us? Um it does a lot of things, it reorient this or reorients our perspective towards everything, really. It it shows us that this is what God loves. And so it's not a duty, it's a delight. You know, this is where the Psalms continue to talk about, they use the language of delight to help us see, hey, this is what God delights in. Um and and so we should delight in what he loves, and these are three things that God loves. And maybe maybe I really struggled with thinking about this because I've seen a lot of people in my ministry that you know they they really struggle with Bible reading, they think it's just a checklist or they don't know the Bible, or they're struggling with the Bible, or maybe they don't agree or or whatever. And by focusing on this, what we're doing is we're taking it beyond just a checklist mentality. Oh, I have to read my Bible because of such and such thing, or I get to do it. No, this is something that God loves. And so as a Christian and dwelt by the Spirit of God, you know, um, we should love what God loves. Um, He He loves His Word, He loves His people, He loves His Church. But further, what the Holy Spirit wants to do according to Jesus in John 15 and 16, is to you know teach the people the truth of Scripture, um, to point them from uh scripture to Jesus and to send them out on mission for God's glory. And so yeah, that's just some some kind of a framework for what I'm trying to do in the book.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that's so helpful, and I I love the spiritual element of it because it is not going to happen and even be essential apart from Christ and knowing God. So leads me to my next question. And we're buddies here, and there are moments where I know you and I at times we got to let it fly and we gotta sort of tell the hard truth so we can share in love what the solution is. How in the world did we get here? That's going back to the stats you just explained. Then you tell us our motivation is to know our God, but we don't know our God, but we've been the church for a long time. Jesus died for us, bled for us, purchased us. We've been in churches 30, 40, 50 years, generations. How in the world did we get here?
SPEAKER_01Well, we had the, you know, we had the seeker sensitive movement in the 70s that really continues to go on, which focused on evangelism. And then in the 90s through, you know, the early 2000s, we had the emerging church. And that focused, that was a reaction to um, you know, the the emphasis on evangelism and then on discipleship. Well, we know what the emerging church did, right? That was a conversation that went sideways. And what that shows us is that we tend to swing back and forth between pendulums. We swing between, you know, evangelism and discipleship to whatever, you know, then there was the, you know, the the young, restless and reformed, and you know, now there's social justice. And all what all these things show us is that we're not really grounded in the in the word. You know, we we tend to focus, swing from whatever theological problem to the next theological problem. And we're like Paul says in Ephesians 4, we're tossed to and fro. We're not grounded in the truth, and we're not being shaped by scripture. Um, you know, we one thing that is a big problem is is we talk about, and you know this in ministry circles, we talk about how our witness is so important, where the New Testament starts with, as we know, is with our character and how our character impacts our witness. And it's not a either or that I'm saying, it's a actually a both and when you see our character described, then you then you usually see something about how our witness, how we're supposed to speak or do, or something like that. But it always starts with our character because of our union with Christ. And and we sadly so the problem is the problem of biblical literacy really goes, I guess, back to this that we have a wrong focus. We see things as either or, not both and, and we don't hold that in the right biblical tension because I mean, and we're talking even in pastoral ministry circles, you know, that you and I would travel. We just talk about things in the wrong way, we put the wrong emphasis on things where the Bible doesn't. Um, or or it's like we put an emphasis on witness, for example, but then we don't put an emphasis on character. What does that do? We wonder why pastors are burning out, we wonder why people are struggling, why they feel so exhausted serving in our churches. Um, we have to focus on both and care, their character and their their witness.
SPEAKER_00That's really helpful. Can you kind of highlight a little bit? You said evangelism, you said the emergent church, you said social justice. Um, are all of you're you're painting a picture, and I'm just making sure I help our audience grab onto where what what you're throwing out there. These are all things that were being blown by the culture, correct? Like evangelism and sort of trying to be attractive to the world and the emergent church and sort of moving into some liberal ideas, and now with social justice, this is what happens when we're not rooted in scripture. We blow to and fro, correct, by the winds of culture. So there'll be another thing, whatever it is, in five years, ten years, twenty years, there'll be some other thing. Hey, maybe it'll be climate change or something like that, right? Seriously, someone might say, like, we need to save the planet, even though Jesus is gonna come back and there'll be a new heaven and new earth, he's gonna destroy it all. Somebody might say, climate change, the church has to care, and that becomes a thing, and then we swing extremely far in it. Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right.
SPEAKER_01Instead of standing and being shaped by the word that we say that we love, we instead are well, well, we have a big problem with the sufficiency of scripture, right? Which is that, you know, all of scripture is is for every area and every phase of our life. It's it's not just you know the truth that we profess, but it also affects our practice. And so what we end it when it ends up happening is is because we're not shaped by the scripture, we're just more influenced by whatever's happening, whether that's you know, people thinking let's get a vaccine or whatever, and you know, we're not even talking about that. So I'm not even trying to bring that up to throw anybody that in anybody's face or anything to get a vaccine or not, just saying that we're we're so whatever the current discussion is, that becomes the current preoccupation of our minds rather than rather than scripture.
SPEAKER_00It's so good, yeah. And it's a reminder that you know in the seeker movement, what were they trying to do? They were they were trying to reach people, they just weren't rooted in the scripture, didn't wasn't the foundation, so they end up doing it in a way that's far too extreme. Uh, you know, the social justice movement is a reaction to horrible tragedies happening in our world, and then all of a sudden it swings though. Now we, you know, the gospel is is doing all these things, and if we don't, we're not being this. So now we have to be, we have to force diversity and all that. And I think what you bring up, even people will do it with whether it's vaccines or masks or whatever, everything gets politicized and it's so extreme. And it's a great reminder that we are to be rooted in the word, walking steady, and something probably every mother has told her son uh when he thinks it's the end of the world, you know, in a teenage moment. My mom told me once, Cost, this too shall pass. And it's a great reminder. We just keep on marching according to the word, and so you better be literate in it, or you get blown around by the culture. So, Dave, I got another question for you. Somebody's listening, going, Yeah, this makes sense. Dave, that's really helpful. Costi, I get it, the cultural stuff, but I don't have a hunger, like I don't want this. I I get so caught up in the day-to-day, and whether it's busyness or materialism or my super awesome life or the psychotic lunacy that's happening out there in the world, and I totally get ramped up about it, and then I don't read my Bible, I don't have a prayer life that's thriving, I'm not hungry for the Bible, I'm just filled with anxiety. What would you say to that person?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I can say I can relate, you know, I have a million things to do like everybody else, you know, and we're all so busy and we're but we're so distracted, and we have to understand that what our distractions are doing is actually taking us away from God rather than to God. A lot of the time, I know for me, it's when I'm when I'm really get discouraged and anxious, I need to just get in my Bible, and I just need to spend some time um reading it, studying it. Also being quiet is a good thing. It's it's good to turn off the phone, get away, maybe lay on your bed, read your Bible or some real quiet place, and just spend some time thinking about things, thinking about life. We're not talking about morbid introspection here, but we're just talking about being quiet, taking some time to to relax, to unwind. Um, I know that stress plays a huge factor in in this and distractions and just just feeling like life is crushing you. And and God has something to say about that. That's the thing. He he in the Psalms, he tells us that he's a very present help in time of need. He he is our fortress, our refuge, our help. Um you know, the Holy Spirit is a paraclete, he teaches us the truth, he also comes alongside of us, which is also amazing too, because not only does the Holy Spirit come alongside of us and indwell us, but the people of God are to come alongside of us with the with you know the help of the Holy Spirit and and to do life with one another. Um and so you know, those are those are some things I think that are that are really helpful, you know, to the Christian that is feeling really just overwhelmed and discouraged, I would say understand that the that the scriptures are bread of life for you, it's water for you. You need it as much as you need um to eat and to breathe and to sleep. It's that serious. You need it that much. And and whenever I say that, people are like, really? Now you just made that a duty. No, I made that a necessity, actually. It's a necessity, it's it's totally different. And and to some of you think, well, that's that's making the Bible a place of legalism. Here's the other thing. I I already said, I already framed everything that I'm saying through the lens of God loves his word, his people, and his church. So what I'm actually doing is trying to get you to train your new affections in Christ. So if that's legalism, sign me up for that. You know, I want some of that legalism, you know. Come on, man. You know, come on, you know, but you know, we we just gotta love God. We have to love God. Jesus tells us very simply to love him with the Lord with all of our heart, with all of our mind, and with all of our soul. And how are we gonna know that? How are we gonna do that without getting at his word? You know, all 66 books are given by God, they're reliable and trustworthy, they're sufficient, they're clear, they're binding on our lives, and we need that word. That's how God speaks. You want to know how God speaks to us? Uh open his word. And if you want to hear him, if you want to hear them out loud, guess what? But read it out loud. You know, that's how God speaks to you today.
SPEAKER_00So amen. Amen. Yeah, I'll kind of add to what you're saying with the the legalism element because I always get a little fired up when people go that route. We don't opt for that response in many areas of our life. You tell me that I've got to know the playbook to be the quarterback, and you tell me I've got to study it and give up my life and not go on 50 dates a week as a high schooler and go party and go whatever in college because I'm gonna be a quarterback and I'm gonna lead the team and I need to know the playbook and I need to go to bed early and wake up on time and all that. You no one calls that legalism. You say that's part of being on the team. That's part of my passion, that's part of the call on a quarterback. For a Christian, we tend to shirk all that and go, ah, that's just legalism. Yeah, tell me to read the Bible, know the Bible, get out of here with all that checklist stuff and this, you're just putting burdens on me. You know, well, then you're not really either on the team at all or you're not a very good team member, and you probably need to sit the bench and think long and hard about whether or not you want to play. And I would encourage Christians across the board, if you profess faith, but you don't want to read the Bible, and I'm not talking about every day you're a crazy person, you know, 17 hours a day, you're in scripture and now you're a monk. I'm just talking basically, you wake up and you go, Jesus, I need you today. Your word is a part of my life today, then you ought to ask some big questions. Has your love grown cold? Uh are you are you are you a cultural American Christian, just kind of doing your thing, which means you're probably maybe not a real one, and you need to ask if you're even saved. These are good questions to ask. And if you can answer them according to the Bible, then that's a beautiful thing. That's why we ask the hard questions. So, hey, yeah, maybe you are a legalist, Dave, but I I think you're uh a good one. So just kidding.
SPEAKER_01Nice, nice. No, what you're saying is so good, too. I mean, that's that's really, really important to really grasp and ask those questions.
SPEAKER_00Well, let's add another one in because you talk about this in your book memorization, something that can help a great deal. But again, people might say, Oh, come on, here we go again. Why? Why do I have to memorize the Bible? I have an app that'll just read it to me. I can just put that on every morning and listen to somebody tell me the Bible. Why memorize the Bible, Dave?
SPEAKER_01Well, we we need to understand again that what Paul has to say to us is so vital in First Timothy 4, 62, a to discipline ourselves for the sake of godliness. Godliness is not a is is that there is a grace-driven effort. We're saved by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone. You know, but we're not we're not we're not saved by any work that we do or anything, but to grow, you know, the Holy Spirit uses the means of grace, you know, Bible study, um, the community of God's people and and those types of things. And so we need it. I said that we need the Bible like we need to breathe and eat and sleep. And that's an important thing. Now, who doesn't memorize things? Think about it. You memorize facts about the news, you memorize facts about your job, you memorize facts all the time, or you remember facts, or you whatever. Now, when you're come to memorizing the Bible, here's something that helps is just to think about what you're reading and maybe keep reading it over and over again, or write it out, or whatever. Now, if you're a visual learner, that would be a good thing. Get a card and write uh or a piece of paper, write out, or type it out, is even a good thing. Uh, and play, make as many copies as you need and put that scripture wherever you wherever you are, because what that does is it'll help you in times that are you know struggling, say you're facing some sort of temptation or some sort of struggle, or you're going through a even a good season. You need scripture in those seasons. Those are those are the seasons where you really need to be hiding that scripture in your heart. If you're having a particularly good season of life, um, you know that there's gonna be come times in your walk with God where um and and just in life in general, where that's gonna be maybe there's a harder thing that's gonna happen. You know, for me, um, that's pretty much every day. I I every day after I'm done with work, I call my parents, and both of my parents have memory issues. And then after Afterwards, I have to quote that scripture to me. Um, they they have Alzheimer's, and my mom has Alzheimer's, and my mom my dad has dementia. And just about every day I'm on the phone with my dad, and just about every day I have to deal with something. And sometimes it's a couple hours a day after I've already worked eight hours a day. You know, and and we all have those things in our lives. And what what memorizing scripture does, it's kind of like going to the ATM to get out money. You you you pull you put in that money into the ATM so that when you have a need of it, you can pull it out. You have the funds. The script scripture memory is the same kind of idea. You put you're putting literally money in the bank to and you're hiding it in your heart so that when you need it, have need of it, you can pull it out and and use it in whatever um whatever time, whatever season that you're in. And so that's the you know, in memorization, it feels meditation. So as you're thinking about scripture, as you're you know, reading it, not and by the way, you're not emptying your mind when you're meditating on scripture, you're filling your mind with God's word so that you can again pull it out in whatever whatever season, whatever thing you're going through, you know, and and we all have things that we're going through, so this is why we need it. So that's not illegalism, it's actually a necessity again.
SPEAKER_00Oh, so good. Well, you said memorization fuels meditation. I love that. You can think about and digest, regurgitate, chew it again over and over and over. What is inside of you, and if God's word's inside of you, that is going to be a beautiful process. Um, I all add as well. What a helpful thing that you you've given us, Dave, because in today's culture, there's a lot of people in our audience who are consistently interacting with people who are anti-Christ, anti-gospel, anti-truth, anti-marriage, anti-biblical gender, all that. And the more we've memorized God's word, the more we can engage thoughtfully in conversation. So a book like yours actually ignites our evangelism effort, our apologetics, and beyond, and even with our own families. I mean, our kids can sniff it out from a mile away. You say something and you can't back it up with the Bible, but you tell them, hey, we're a word-filled home here, people. We're gonna follow God. And they're like, you don't even know God's word, dad. Come on now. Um, not saying that kids should have that kind of attitude, but they're thinking it, they can see right through us. So uh thank you for a book like this. I want to go one more place as we uh start our descent here from 30,000 feet, uh, 35,000 feet. Sorry, some of the technical people who listen go, actually, Costi. Small groups. You talk about the importance of small groups in the life of a believer and in assisting us with biblical literacy and going deeper in the word. Uh so why should somebody be in a small group or be a part of a community and how can it help? And then sort of combat the idea that you know it's show and go on Sunday. We sit under our great expositor, we have a great time, then we hit the ground running for the week, and then just come back next Sunday to do it all over again and let the you know the top dog do all the work, so to speak. Uh hammer down that idea too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a good, good, good, good question. Well, or 50 times, you know, most people say 50 times 35 times to whatever, 60 times in the New Testament, given however you divide those. Um, just to be clear, some people do divide these differently. Um, though there's one and other passages, and these one and other passages tell us what we're supposed to do in the local church, you know, under biblically qualified male elders, which you love. I know, and so do I, you know. Um, but here's the thing, you know, we we Charles Spurgeon says, I have a great need of Christ and a great Christ for my need. And I modify that a little bit, and I say that we not only have a great Christ for our need, and you know, and He's He's all we need, but we have a great need of one another, and that that reflects the one another passages, and so what that means is as we come together in small groups, by the way, they're not only grounded in the word and and in prayer, and we can fellowship, but we don't gather in our small groups, right? For the purpose of food or or even fellowship, we gather together around God's word together. So all those external things that we do, whether we have food or whatever, they can all serve a purpose. But the per if there's not, you know, time in the word together and in prayer together, that that's the necessity that really is for any small group. And and we need that. Um, I need that. I need that. Whether whether you know I'm a seminary trained uh Christian, um, I need the insight of somebody who isn't a seminary trained Christian. And I've often benefited from that. When I led small groups, um, I I have after we we've gone through whatever study, I took, I've taken questions. And now that is something that's really, really important because if we're going to address biblical literacy, we have to get into the heart of people. We don't only need to know what's happening in their hearts by asking for prayer requests and stuff, but we need to figure out what questions they have. And I think that the best place to do this is in a small group, you know, um, where questions can be asked, answers can be given, um, where we can humbly say, hey, I don't know the answer to that question, but hey, um, you know, uh your pastor Coste might know, or whoever uh Pastor So-and-so might know, or somebody else might know. Um, I know in my small group that I go to, there's a couple of guys like myself and another guy that's been to Bible college, and we do our best to answer questions, but that doesn't mean like, hey, maybe I don't know the answer to the question. I would say to somebody, I just would be like, hey, let me let me think about this, let me research it, and let me get back to you next week, or let's talk about that next time together, or maybe let's get together, depending on what it is and those types of things. And but this kind of space, what it does is it gives us an opportunity to speak into one another's life and to speak truth to one another in love. And that and that helps us to grow. It helps us to address you know questions that people have so those questions don't fester in our lives and cause us to doubt God, to question his goodness, his love, his mercy, and whether we have um answers or not. And we what we're seeing is that so many Christians are abandoning the faith, they're deconstructing their lives because they've never been given this kind of opportunity, this kind of uh community where they can have a safe place, maybe to ever answer, get questions, ask questions, and get the answers that they really need. Or what happens a lot also with that is that you know they've rejected the answer too, and they've just chosen to rebel against God, just to be clear. We've seen both and so yeah.
SPEAKER_00I love what you've just explained because it helps people, even who might say, Yeah, I'm I am good. I I go on Sunday and sit under the word, and I know the word, my home knows the word. And what you've just helped a lot of people understand who might be in that category is that that's awesome, but now go help other people. Give answers to others and walk them through God's word. Well, Dave, I can't thank you enough for being on the program today. We appreciate you, brother.
SPEAKER_01I appreciate you too, brother, and all you're doing.
SPEAKER_00Well, to our listeners, uh keep an eye on social media in the coming weeks. We're gonna be giving away some copies of The Word Explored: The Problem of Biblical Illiteracy and What to Do About It by Dave Jenkins. It's a great book, a short, easy read. As always, we uh enjoy people who bring the cookies down from the top shelf. It's sound doctrine for everyday people in a way that all of us can understand. And so we're grateful for Dave writing that. Uh, thanks again for all of your support. So many of you have subscribed, you're rating and reviewing the podcast. Keep that up as well on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And for blog articles and more, and to give and support what's happening at FurtheGospel, go to furthegospel.org and we will see you on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel is growing. So check out the Fused Family series. Lots of great free content on there as well. We will be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living and growing in the word for the gospel.