What Causes Biblical Ignorance-Part 3

We have already identified the first two causes of Biblical ignorance as lack of Bible reading and lack of Biblical preaching. So the third cause of Biblical ignorance is lack of Biblical teaching. Some of you may be going I thought this was the same thing as preaching.

Preaching and teaching are similar in many ways, but they are also different. Preaching is primarily focused during a corporate worship service where the preacher preaches the Word and the people of God worship as they hear the word and sing songs prior to and after the sermon. Teaching comes in many forms and preaching is one of them. Biblical teaching is found in the following contexts: reading a Christian book, small group, listening to sermon/message on the radio/Internet, and even one-on-one discipleship.

If you go into a Christian bookstore, you see a mixture of Christian books written by different authors of various walks of faith. You got your Baptists, Charismatics, Arminians, people who say they went to heaven and came back, and fiction writers. People go into a Christian bookstore to get a book but they may not get Biblical teaching. They may get some false teaching such as the prosperity gospel which seems to be best sellers. They also may get some liberal theology that say your sin is no big deal.

Many Christians attend church but do not attend any Bible study outside a corporate worship setting. Do not get me wrong, corporate worship is important, but so is getting together with fellow believers and study the Bible. Whether it is a traditional Sunday School class or a small group in a home, there needs to be some form of Biblical teaching. People who read the Bible may have questions, correction, they will have questions. A small group setting is a good time for questions to get answered, which the same can be said for one-on-one discipleship.

What about listening to a sermon on the radio or Internet? Keep in mind, while there are a lot of great sermons on the Internet, they should not replace your pastor or the church you attend. Listening to Christian music, particularly contemporary Christian music is not a variable teaching tool. While there are many great songs out there, they are not a form of Biblical teaching. Our worship songs in corporate worship should not only express our love for God but also teach us about the gospel as we sing.

Anybody ever listened to Carman? Well, I did. He was one of my favorite singers growing up while almost everyone in my church did not like him, which I can understand why now. There was a story song he did called "Revival in the Land" where the devil is in hell watching the chaos mankind has inflected on the world through a big screen TV while sitting on his throne. By the way, this is from the music video of that song. What does that teach us about the devil? A more interesting questions is, who is the devil's cable provider?

Now that we have taken a look of the causes of Biblical ignorance, the question we should ask ourselves is, what are the effects of Biblical ignorance in the life of a Christian?