Biblical Illiteracy
In the course of my web browsing, I’ve seen links in a couple of sites I frequent to the same article about the problem of biblical illiteracy among Christians. The article says:
As a professor of New Testament studies, I know this reality only too well. I often begin my survey of the Christian Scriptures course by asking students to take a short biblical literacy quiz, including questions of the sort mentioned above. The vast majority of my students—around 95 percent of them—are Christians, and half of them typically report that they currently attend nondenominational evangelical churches. Yet the class as a whole consistently averages a score of just over 50 percent, a failing grade.
At PCF, we fit that description of “nondenominational evangelical church”. And since I have kids who will be college students in a few years, I certainly don’t want them (or any kids from PCF) to be part of that statistic. As an elder, I don’t want any of us to be part of that statistic.
Here are some of the types of questions the author is talking about:
- Name the four gospels.
- Who asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
- Where do you find the statement, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”?
- What happened on the road to Damascus?
- Place the following four events from Israel’s history in chronological order:
- David is made king
- The people of Judah go into exile
- Israel enters the promised land
- Israel is divided in two
- Place the following four New Testament events in chronological order:
- The spirit descends at Pentecost
- Peter denies Jesus
- John has a vision on the island of Patmos
- Jesus is born
You can find the answers in the article, which you can read here.
How did you do? More importantly, if you struggled to answer these questions, what are you going to do about it, and how can PCF help you?
Posted by David Fenton on Feb 7, 11:02 PM