Today, our adult Bible class began a study of God’s Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture, by Ken Cukrowski, Mark Hamilton, and James Thompson.
The authors state that “people live by stories that locate their lives in the larger picture of the world. Stories express a way of viewing reality. From these stories, we can discover how to answer our most basic questions: who are we, where are we, what is wrong and what is the solution? A community without a narrative explaining where it came from and where it is going will lose its purpose and die” (3). These foundational stories or community narratives are very powerful and they are largely responsible not only for giving us our purpose and meaning, but also for our continued survival. Christianity is a religion that is founded upon a story and that story is found in the Bible. Churches will survive and continue to be the Kingdom of God to our world, therefore, only inasmuch as we are connected to our foundational story in the Bible.
Unfortunately, the authors claim, the church is facing an increasing biblical illiteracy rate in America. In other words, we are rapidly becoming out of touch with our story. While there are several reasons that could be given to account for declining biblical literacy, the authors offer three. First, past experiences in Bible class have immunized people from wanting to study the Bible. Many of us grew up in Bible classes that did not show us how the Bible is relevant to our lives and were boring. These experiences served to take away our motivation for good Bible study when we got older. Second, our culture has prepared us to do our reading and get our information in short bursts and sound bites. It is difficult for us to devote the time that is necessary to do good Bible study. Third, Bible study appears to be a daunting task because of the large gap in time, distance, language, and culture that stands between us and the biblical text. There are many other reasons that could be named, but each of them only supports the authors’ position that biblical illiteracy is reaching an all time high.
God’s Holy Fire, then, is their attempt to curb this lack of Bible reading, study, and knowledge. “We write this book because we are convinced this decline in biblical literacy will result in the loss of the church’s memory – a devastating form of amnesia. Therefore, we challenge Christians to rediscover the Word that has sustained God’s people for generations. We hope to encourage the love of scripture, to lead the church toward the knowledge of scripture, to equip the church for the proper use of scripture, and to clear away misunderstandings of scripture…to encourage Christians to reclaim the central place of the Bible in their lives” (ix-x).
If we would stave off the rising tide of biblical illiteracy that threatens the health and stability of the church, then we must rediscover the Bible and its relevance for our lives today, even though it was written so long ago. It cannot be, for us, simply a history book; it is not simply a book full of good stories; nor is it some kind of blueprint that when followed will get God to like us more. The Bible is a book which defies categorization. Ultimately, it is the story of God’s quest to restore a relationship with humanity.
I highly reccomend this book to any and all who want to recapture a zest and passion for good Bible study and the use of scripture in the church of today.
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