The Crisis of Biblical Literacy and Fluency

One of the challenges facing the Christian church is a decline in Biblical literacy and fluency. Christians are not reading and understanding the Bible. Some scholars and pastors state it is a crisis. We all, the church, the school, and parents, have a role to play in building Biblical literacy and fluency.

Celina Durgin in an article called, “Are You Bible-Literate? How about Bible-Fluent?” defines these two terms this way.

Bible literacy is a thorough familiarity with the key narratives, people, order of events, and basic, clear themes throughout the whole Bible—yes, even the minor prophets.

Bible Fluency is the (habituated) ability to faithfully extend biblical principles from their original contexts into our modern context in a potentially infinite number of ways. Being Bible-fluent means that you can confidently identify and apply what the biblical authors say or would say about an important issue without proof-texting, overlooking the text’s basic literary elements, or otherwise misinterpreting the pertinent passages. It also requires reading Scripture as literature, which is necessary for being shaped by its teaching so that you can faithfully apply it.

Biblical literacy and fluency are important to us because it is the foundation for faithful living. We know this is important to you because you have told us that the main reason for sending your children to a Christian school is for faith formation. We are here to help in building Biblical literacy and fluency.

Here are some different resources that you can use to build Biblical literacy and fluency in your family.

Adults: Understanding how the Bible, as a whole, tells a grand narrative.

  • The True Story of the Whole World: Finding Your Place in the Biblical Drama by Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen – Staff is reading this book for devotions this
  • The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People by Randy Frazee
  • A Compact Guide to the Whole Bible: Learning to Read Scripture’s Story by Robert W. Wall and Richard Nienhuis
  • The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler

Everyone:

  • Inspired By … The Bible Experience – This audiobook is a dramatized reading of the You will recognize some famous voices. Published by Zondervan. I listened to this Bible audiobook on my drives home from school. It took about a year to finish.
  • The Bible Project – A set of videos that helps establish the big picture of the
  • RightNow Media – A whole library of Christian video content. Something for everyone. Many of our local churches have purchased a subscription. If you do not have an account, ask one of your church leaders if your church subscribes to this

Children:

  • The Big Picture Story Bible by David Helm
  • The Big Picture Interactive Bible Storybook from the Gospel Project
  • The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones