The Church of Jesus Christ is growing like crazy in the majority world. In South America and Africa and even Asia now, more and more people are accepting Christ as their Savior and join the ranks of Jesus’ army. In the West, Christianity is dying. Although there are numerous reasons, known and unknown, as to why this is a reality, I believe that a major catalyst to the decline of Christianity in the West is our lack of solid biblical knowledge. The church that I am a part of currently lacks a more structural Sunday School for the youth. My mom brought up this fact to me and pointed out that my sisters have very little Bible knowledge because they do not read the Bible every day and do not attend a more formal Sunday School.
I love my church, and I love the people there and can see that our leadership is trying desperately to move our congregation into a missional lifestyle that really does live covenantally; intentionally going out of their way to bring Christ to our neighbors, but there is a long road ahead. I am absolutely convinced that one of the reasons that the average Western Christian does not reach out as Christ did is because we do not realized how often He really did reach out! We are not familiar with why He proclaimed the Good News and how He proclaimed the Good News. We have the simple answers to those questions “He reached out with His miracles and love and wanted people to believe in Him and be saved” but there is so much more to those answers than what meets the eye and the more thorough and fleshed out answers come from reading Scripture, discussing Scripture and praying in the Holy Spirit.
I am no dummy, I know that memorizing the entire Bible means nothing without love. We need the Holy Spirit to reign down (yes reign not rain) by inviting Him in and submitting to Him for His Kingdom. That is one of the keys to the Church’s success abroad, their strong emphasis on Scripture. The Word of God is powerful and He will move us more towards giving up of ourselves for our King and His Kingdom, but only if we let Him.
Zach W.
You can be a faithful witness to Christ even without Biblical knowledge. It makes it easier, but I am more likely to trust the way a person acts, rather than how many Bible verses they can spew out at me. I am not disagreeing, saying that we don’t need to use the Bible in missions, I want to make the clear. But in the first three centuries, when Christianity was at its most explosive growth they didn’t have the Scriptures. They had some, but they weren’t always well circulated. The key to their success was that they lived differently and they did not have a bunch of head knowledge trying to convert people with how much they knew.
I agree that thorough Biblical knowledge is a necessary foundation to seek–and it’s true that Jesus reached out to people relationally and personally. I have always struggled with the balance between knowing God in my head, and knowing him in my heart and through relationships with people. Which is of more value? Maybe neither. Maybe both.
-Lauren