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I have elsewhere expressed my concern about the biblical illiteracy of many Christians, e.g., in my article, On the Confusion Caused by Popular Books. I recall that many years ago, as a young Christian, adult Sunday School classes and mid-week Bible studies were still in vogue. Today, many churches have dispensed with both. The Bible study groups I experienced were centered around a passage-by-passage study of an entire book of the Bible. Today, they have transformed into small groups. Instead of just the Bible, we now need thin little study guides with warm anecdotes and silly questions. These so-called study booklets unwittingly encourage eisegesis rather than careful exegesis!
So the average Christian is left to absorb whatever biblical knowledge he can from his weekly intake of sermons. I've already noted the limitations of the traditional sermon for didactic purposes. How then can we increase the biblical literacy level in our churches?
First of all, new converts and young Christians that join our assembly should go through a "catechism" class that will teach them the basics of the Christian faith: how to read God's Word accurately (hermeneutics), survey of the Bible, prayer and spiritual disciplines, theology, etc. Hopefully, more mature believers will also model what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. We send our kids to school for at 13 years of structured learning, and yet in the church we fail to systematically teach God's truths. While Christianity is more than a set of doctrines, propositions and intellectual arguments, neither is it just vague, warm, and fuzzy notions.
Too many sermons are simply moralistic pep-talks devoid of biblical content other than superficially. Further, there is a huge gap between the academy and church; increasingly, biblical and theological studies are becoming complex and interdisciplinary, drawing insights from linguistics, literary criticism, cultural studies, sociology, etc. And yet, the average Christian is content to dwell in ignorance and just read the pablum that makes the "Top 20 Christian Bestsellers" list. How can we bridge this gap and help all believers to think biblically, that is, to have a Christian worldview for all of life? Again, I will argue that we need to make learning an "everyday" part of our lives. That we need to be wholistic in our Christian walk, and view all of life through the lens of scripture and a theologically informed mindset. We need to bring "theology to life", as Robert Banks has helpfully articulated in his book, Redeeming the Routines: Bringing Theology to Life:
In the midst of our daily activities, whatever they happen to be, we should find reverberations of eternity - of the kingdom of God, of the qualities, ethos, and values of heavenly life - coming to us. ... Such sacramental moments can happen in the home, at work, or out in the open.
...
Our communal life with other Christians should also have its feet on the ground. Gathering with them ought not to revolve around so-called spiritual concerns alone, but embrace every aspect of our lives.
This has been my recurring plea throughout this paper, the need for an "everyday" approach to ecclesial life. For church is not a place or event, it is the new community created by the Spirit. It is a cruciformic community, not shaped by sentimental feelings, but by the self-giving love of Christ. But it is also an eschatological community, so that by the power of the Spirit, we can live the (future) Resurrection life NOW in the present age - in our "ordinary", everyday lives.
More as a novelist than as a theologian, more concretely than abstractly, I determined to try to describe my own life as evocatively and candidly as I could in the hope that such glimmers of theological truth as I believe I had glimpsed in it would shine through my description more or less on their own. It seemed to me then, and it seems to to me still, that if God speaks to us at all in this world, if God speaks anywhere, it is into our personal lives that he speaks. ... We sleep and dream. We wake. We work. We remember and forget. We have fun and are depressed. And into the thick of it, or out of the thick of it, at moments of even the most humdrum of our days, God speaks.
Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey, pp. 1,2 (emphasis mine).
It is evident that the first thing to do is to be faithful to revelation, but this fidelity can only become a reality in daily life through the creation of a new way of life: this is the "missing link." ... The creation of such a style of life is a work which is both collective and individual.
Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom, pp. 145-147 (emphasis mine).