I have spent the past 15 years attending, studying and teaching at a number of Bible colleges in Australia, especially the ones that have been growing in enrolment. One alarming trend is the declining interest in studying the Bible itself. There are many students enrolled in leadership and ministry subjects. But often there are only a handful of students doing subjects that focus on studying the Bible. And I am not referring to subjects that involve highly technical Bible analysis. Nor am I referring to subjects taught by boring lecturers. These subjects are, for example, book studies on selected books in the Bible, and are taught by lecturers who try their best to make the Scripture relevant to daily life and ministry.
This is, to me, an alarming trend. How can our future leaders and pastors (and indeed Christians who are sincere enough about their faith to study at Bible colleges) not be interested studying the Bible itself? What future is there for the church? What's the point of being a good 'leader' without some basic skills to study the Bible?
As I speak with the lecturers in the Bible colleges, I am told that the students they get in recent years do not have the basic Bible knowledge they used to have. College lecturers find themselves having to do the job that normally local churches do - ie. to help Christians to pray and learn how to read the Bible.
(In my previous post, I referred to Cheryl Catford's observation on the decline of biblical literacy. Click here to see the reasons Cheryl outlines.)
How can we be authentic followers of Jesus if we do not diligently study the Scripture that Jesus himself loved and upheld when he walked on earth?
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