Form Without Substance?

Biblical Literacy Needs Deeper Teaching in the Church

James Riley Estep Jr. argues that many Christians are unprepared for serious questions about Scripture because church education often lacks depth and content. He calls congregations to provide stronger biblical instruction, engage critical issues honestly, and move believers from surface-level familiarity toward mature understanding.

• Shallow biblical understanding can leave Christians vulnerable when faith is challenged.
• Christian education should include substantive content, not only methods and programs.
• Congregations need intentional systems that guide believers into deeper study of Scripture.

By James Riley Estep Jr.

“Why didn’t I ever hear about this in church?” he asked. I sat there at lunch a little perplexed.

I was a first-year youth minister, and Matt was a freshman at a nearby state university. We had met the previous summer when I became the youth minister, but with the arrival of fall he moved to the nearby campus and started attending classes.

One of these classes was “Introduction to Religion,” wherein he learned much about Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism . . . and of Christianity in a way he had never heard. He said, “My professor explained how Moses did not write the Pentateuch, the book of Isaiah is a compilation of other writings, the Gospels are simply copies of each other or lost documents, and the Pastoral Epistles are forgeries!”

Matt had been in church his entire life, attended Sunday school and youth group, and had even been on the Bible Bowl team. He knew his Bible, but that’s all he knew. He had a surface-level understanding of the biblical text, and no one had carried him into the deeper critical questions about the Bible, preparing him to understand and respond to his professor. His understanding of the Bible was shallow, and for this reason his faith was shaken.

Scholarly Material in the Church?

But should we really be teaching scholarly material in the church? Is the average, everyday Christian really going to encounter this kind of rhetoric?

Yes to both. We tend to believe we are removed from the scholarly banter that occurs in the halls of colleges, seminaries, and universities. We are not. Every Christmas and Easter we see network news shows, and national magazines headline documentaries about “The True Origin of Christianity!” “Who Was the Real Jesus?” or “Who Wrote the Bible?” each with its own less than favorable leanings toward Christianity. And then there are periodic swipes at faith such as the popular The Da Vinci Code. We are not so far removed from this level of study as one may think.

Christian education within our congregations is suffering for numerous reasons. However, I believe a principle reason for the demise of Christian education is a serious lack of content. With this lack of cognitive substance, Christian education has become identified more with its methodologies than its material, and more with its “bells and whistles” than with the Bible. The effect is many have been instructed all their lives in church, but still possess at best only a surface-level understanding of Scripture; their faith is readily challenged because they have been fed milk rather than meat.

In this matter, ignorance is not our ally, it is our enemy. Christian education must provide substance and content for the nurturing of Christian faith.

Stephen Prothero’s seminal work Religious Literacy (HarperCollins, 2007) affirms the continuing presence of religion, particularly Christianity, in American culture and Western civilization. However, Prothero raises an alarm regarding Americans’ virtual ignorance of religious content, even among those who are active participants in an organized religion.

Who is to blame for this religious illiteracy? As many evangelicals charge, the removal of religion from the public school curriculum is one of the main culprits. However, Prothero readily identifies a second offender: Christian education! He notes churches have failed to instruct their members on their faith’s basic tenets (p. 11).

Why Is Content so Important?

Content is vital for both theological and practical reasons.

First, the very fact of revelation, that God has spoken, should compel us to ask, “What did he say?” Scripture is the result of God’s apokaluptō; in other words, God’s revealing actions have left a revealed product, the Bible. This alone should provide adequate impetus to the thorough study of Scripture. Recall that Jesus condemned his opponents by saying, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?” (Mark 12:24).

Second, the study of Scripture aids in spiritual transformation. Scripture describes itself as “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105), and without it we have a dimly lit faith. Second Timothy 3:14-17 describes the place of biblical content in relation to the whole Christian life. Paul reminds Timothy to “continue in what you have learned . . .” (v. 14). Why? It transforms our mind (v. 15), life (v. 16), and ultimately our service to God (v. 17). We cannot have a transformed life or be thoroughly equipped to serve God unless we first are students of God’s Word.

Is there not more to faith than knowledge of the content? ABSOLUTELY! However, without content, we are offering a hollow faith, a form without substance. John Stackhouse perhaps expresses this concern best in his book Evangelical Landscapes (Baker 2002):

Evangelicals used to be accused of being “biblicistic” and even “bibliolatrous” as they reflexively referred any problem of life to a Bible text. That accusation can rarely be leveled anymore, and it is not necessarily because evangelicals have become more theologically sophisticated. Many instead have become just as ignorant of the Bible as anyone else (p. 71).

The following observation from Stackhouse is perhaps even more important:

The ignorance of the general public about the fundamentals of the Christian faith is regrettable. The ignorance of churchgoing Christians about the fundamentals of the Christian faith, however, is scandalous. Christians are somehow expected to think and feel and live in a distinctive way, as followers of Jesus, without being provided the basic vocabulary, grammar, and concepts of the Christian religion (p. 193).

Put more succinctly, we cannot decide WWJD? (What Would Jesus Do?) until we know WDJD? (What Did Jesus Do?). How Christian can I be if I do not comprehend the meaning of Christ in Scripture?

Knowing God must go beyond the cognitive, but I cannot know God until I first know about God! For example, wouldn’t it help the Christian capture the distinctive biblical portrait of who God is (consider the Trinitarian concept unique to Christianity) in order to truly know and fall in love with God?

I don’t want to be sacrilegious, but here’s another example: Could I say this to my wife? “I want to love you, but not really know anything about you. I want a genuine relationship with you, but I don’t want that to be based on knowing anything about you.” Could I really say I know my wife if I didn’t know her name, birthday, our anniversary, her family background, likes and dislikes—all the elements that in part make her who she is?

I agree that a content-centered or content-only approach to education is insufficient for growing the Christian faith; but I likewise affirm that a content-less or superficial engagement with Scripture as devotional literature may not be sufficient for providing substance to the Christian’s relationship with God.

Suggestions for Adding Substance

What can we do? I have several ideas.

First, congregations must provide for the basic faith instruction of new members. Where are new believers introduced to the content of the Christian faith in your congregation? If this question is not readily answered, then probably nowhere.

Thom S. Rainer’s High Expectations (Broadman & Holman, 1999) concluded that congregations retain more new members because of such a program.

Second, when teaching a Bible book, engage in the critical issues. For example, if you’re teaching the life of Christ, why not first explain the origin of the Gospels and their relationship to one another, debunking some of the less than favorable critical theories of the day?

Third, study theology in a practical context. “Because we believe this, we live like this!”

Finally, develop a system of education in your congregation that takes individuals from a basic instruction in the faith toward a more thorough, in-depth, critically informed study of Scripture. For this, you may need to call a Christian education minister!

James Riley Estep Jr. is professor of Christian education at Lincoln (Illinois) Christian Seminary.

Author: James Riley Estep Jr.