Biblical illiteracy can lead believers to believe everything in the Bible applies to us, missing the larger picture. If we don’t know the grand narrative of Scripture that points to Jesus, it can be difficult to apply texts to our lives in a healthy. As the survey data above shows, Christians need to grow our literacy and fluency with the Bible. If Christians can’t answer these questions, it will affect our witness to those around us. Many atheists have read the Bible more than people who grew up Christian because they seek to find issues with the Word of God.

The numbers have continued to decline since then-the American Bible Society found that 26 million people stopped reading the Bible between 20. In 2014, the Pew Research Center performed studies which found that 63 percent of evangelical Christians read the Bible “at least once a week” and that 18 percent “seldom or never” read it. Sadly and couldn’t discuss more than the basic, big stories. Most American Christians have never read through the entire Bible. How Biblically Literate Are Most Christians in America? These are the biographical portions (the Gospels), the historical (Acts), the apocalypse (Revelation), and the epistles or letters (everything else). The New Testament also has four distinct genres. The “K” refers to Ketuvim, or writings, which include the Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Chronicles. The N refers to Neviim, or prophets-which includes everything between Joshua and Kings, the major prophets, and the book of the twelve (What we know as the minor prophets).

The T refers to the Torah-the law, the Bible’s first five books.

Together these three are known as the TNK. Reading Proverbs in the same way we read Isaiah can cause us to become frustrated or confused.Īncient Rabbis divided the Old Testament into three different parts. It might look like knowing a few scattered stories that would be learned in Sunday School.īiblical illiteracy also looks like not understanding the different genres in Scripture. It consists of understanding the different genres of Scripture What Does It Mean to Be Biblically Illiterate?īiblical illiteracy means not being familiar with the Bible in a way that is helpful and meaningful for everyday life. Biblical literacy is being able to understand how each book of the Bible applies to our lives and how each book can speak to us. The Bible is a collection of books written over a 2500-year period, and it has a unified story that points to Jesus.

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