What Causes Biblical Ignorance?

What are the causes for many in the church to be ignorant of the things in Scripture? I am sure there are a variety of answers to this question depending on who you ask. As I pondered this question, I came up with three things that will cause Biblical ignorance. In this post, we will look one of them and focus on the others in the next two posts.

The first thing that will cause Biblical ignorance is lack of Bible reading. It is no secret that Bible illiteracy is plaguing the church. Some pastors will say it is an epidemic across our nation. While that is true, we need to understand the church is the chosen people of God because of life and death of Christ. While American was founded on godly principles, we must understand that Christ died for the church and is head of the church. It should shock us that the people of God are not reading their Bibles faithfully and growing in their walk with Christ.

Lack of Bible reading can come in many ways. First, people in the church only reserve their time for reading the Bible during church time. Whether it is during Sunday School/small group and/or during the sermon, people read their Bibles only at church. They will remember where the pastor was preaching on but if you ask them about Bible reading during the week, you get a blank stare.

Second, people in the church will not read the Bible because it confuses them. Remember what Paul told the Corinthian church. The natural man cannot accept the things of the Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:14). Instead of reading the Bible for themselves and studying it, they put it away because only the "Super Spirit Person" can understand it. Does this sound like anyone in your church.

Third, people in the church will not read the Bible because it scares them. How many of you were scared when you first read Revelation? I admit I was at first because of the bad teaching that went with it and make it what God never intended it to be. Every time someone read the Bible from the beginning, they do great with Genesis and Exodus but when they get to Leviticus, they start getting a little sick to the stomach. In fact, many Christians skip the Old Testament because of how God is portrayed in it. They think God is love, which is true according to 1 John, but they see Him as a wrathful God, which is also true because He does not tolerate sin.

Lack of Biblical reading is one of the causes of Biblical ignorance which we will see the effects of it as we move through in this series. We will also take a look at the other two causes of Biblical ignorance in the next couple of posts.