"Getting Back to the Bible"

Dear Friends in Christ,

   I’m going to begin my sermon this morning with a little quiz to test your knowledge of the Bible.  Don’t worry.  I’m not going to call on you to see if you know the right answer.  Just answer the following question to yourself.  Here it is:  Which of the following quotes are found in the Bible?

1. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
2. God helps those who help themselves.
3. Confession is good for the soul.
4. Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
5. Money is the root of all evil.
6. Honesty is the best policy.
7. Do to others what you would have them do to you.

   The correct answer is #4 and #7.  Just for the fun of it, how many of you got it right?  Hmmm – you know what I think?  I think the sermon series that I’m starting today just might be right up your alley because the theme that I’ve chosen for this series is “Getting Back to the Bible.”  Now please understand, the purpose of these messages will not be to heap a lot of guilt on you for your lack of Bible knowledge or your lack of Bible reading and Bible study.  But one of my goals is to get you thinking and get you excited about improving in those areas in the hopes that the sub-theme that I’ve come up with for this sermon series might be fulfilled.  And that sub-theme is: “Getting people into the Word so that the Word might get into people.”

   And just to give you a little road map of where we’re heading in this series, we’re going to start by taking a look at some of the reasons why people don’t read the Bible.  Then we’ll be looking at some great reasons why we should read the Bible.  This will then lead to some of the problems that have arisen because of biblical illiteracy in our culture and our individual lives, at which time we’ll discover that those problems are not new, that they’ve been around ever since God’s Word has been around in written form.  But then we’ll offer hope for ourselves and hope for our church as we spend some time in what I will be calling “Recovery 101.”

   But before we get to any of those things, I’d like you to just think back for a moment to the first Bible you ever owned.  You may not be able to remember it, but I can sure remember mine.  In fact, I brought it with me today.  It’s not a Bible that was given to me.  Rather, it’s a Bible I earned.  You see, when I was attending Zion Lutheran School in Staunton, IL, each year around October and November, we students would sell Christmas cards, or what my teacher told us to refer to as Christian greeting cards.  We did this as a fund raiser of sorts for our school.  And once in a while they would throw in an incentive to get us more motivated to get out and really beat the bushes.  For example, one year they said that each student would get back 10% of what he or she sold.  Well, that sounded pretty good to me, so I went all over the neighborhood, knocking on doors and using my favorite line to get into peoples’ homes: “Hi, my name is Doug Meyer.  I’m Pastor Meyer’s son and I was wondering if you would like to buy some Christmas cards from me.”  That line about being Pastor Meyer’s son not only came in handy with selling Christmas cards, but it also proved quite helpful when I started looking for lawns to mow each summer.  At any rate, that year I sold $118 worth of Christmas cards and got back $11.80.  Not bad for a little kid back in the ‘60’s. 

   But then there was the year that we could earn different items, depending on how much we sold.  And there at the top of the list was a brand new Revised Standard Version Bible.  Oh how I wanted that Bible!  And there was only one way to get it.  Knock on doors and peddle my wares.  And by the time the selling season was over, I had in my hands this Bible right here that still sits on my shelf and that I still refer to periodically.

   Indeed, there’s no book like the Bible.  Brides sometimes carry it on their wedding day.  Soldiers carry it into battle.  Presidents place their hand on it when they are sworn into office.  Aging men and women draw comfort from it during times of loneliness or discouragement.  Members of the Gideons stand in pouring rain to distribute it on university campuses.  Prisoners of war commit it to memory and look for ingenious ways to share it with their fellow prisoners.  Some have even been willing to die for their Bible (read Extreme Devotion, p. 241).

   Unfortunately, though we live in a country where 86% of American households either own or have a Bible, and Bibles are readily available to those who don’t have them, we’re living at a time right now where Bible reading has been in sharp decline for a number of years and Bible knowledge has simply followed suit.  This lack of Bible knowledge has been demonstrated by Jay Leno on the Tonight Show when he does his “Jaywalking” stints where he goes out on the street, sticks a microphone in somebody’s face, and asks them questions.  One question he has asked is: “Name one of the Ten Commandments.”  The most popular answer?  “God helps those who help themselves,” which as we learned before is not even found in the Bible.  He’s also asked people if they can name any of the apostles, for which he only got blank stares.  But when he asked if they could name any of the Beatles, the people rattled off “John, Paul, George, and Ringo” just like that.  And when he asked who was swallowed by a great fish, back came the confident answer: “Pinocchio.”

   So who is reading the Bible these days?  Well, according to a 2000 Gallup poll, about 6 in 10 Americans say they read the Bible at least occasionally, with the most likely readers being women, nonwhites, older people, Republicans, and political conservatives.  Readership of the Bible has declined significantly from 73% in the 1980’s to 59% today.  In terms of frequency of readership, 16% of Americans say they read it every day, 21% say they read it weekly, 12% say they read it monthly, 10% say they read it less than monthly, and 41% say that they rarely or never read the Bible.  So according to those statistics, in a land where there are Bibles, Bibles everywhere, 84% of Americans read that holy book once a week or less.

   It should not surprise us then that when the Barna Research Group polled Americans in 2005 and asked them to rate their maturity in relation to seven dimensions of their spiritual life, the dimension where they rated themselves lowest was Bible knowledge.  I guess the good news there is that even though Americans are suffering in this area, at least they’re honest about it.

   So what are some of the reasons why people don’t read the Bible?  Well, according to Woodrow Kroll, who is a frequent speaker at the Worldview Weekend conferences that Marilyn and I like to attend and who hosts a radio show called “Back to the Bible” from which I took the theme for this sermon series, there are many reasons.  For example, some people say they don’t read the Bible because they don’t know where to start.  I find that kind of interesting because if you hand them a book by Stephen King or Tom Clancy or some other well known author, they wouldn’t say that.  Instead, they would open up to page 1 and begin reading.  In other words, they would begin at the beginning.  And what a novel place to start with the Bible!  But that’s not to say you have to start at the beginning because the Bible is really a library of 66 books, many of which serve different purposes.  For example, when I sense that someone is in need of strength or encouragement and I tell them to read the Bible, I don’t tell them to start at the beginning.  Rather I direct them to the Psalms.  Or if someone is needing some good practical advice for living, I’ll direct them to the Book of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes.  If someone is wanting to know more about Jesus, I send them to the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  But if you’re just wanting to read the Bible and find out what it’s all about, then I would recommend that you start at the beginning.  Start with Genesis 1:1 and just keep on reading till you’re done and you will see God’s marvelous plan of salvation for a lost and sinful world unfold before your very eyes.

   Then a 2^nd reason people say they don’t read the Bible is because they can’t find what they’re looking for.  And granted, that can be frustrating.  I know because I’ve experienced that problem many times.  For that reason you might want to do a couple of things.  You may want to read your Bible with an open notebook or computer nearby.  Then when you encounter something that strikes you as particularly important or interesting, something that you want to remember, jot it down.  Don’t rely on your memory because if your memory is anything like mine, it’s going to leak out of that sieve-like brain of yours faster than you can imagine.  I love an old Chinese proverb that says: “The smallest amount of ink is stronger than the largest amount of memory.”  So write it down.

   Then another suggestion I have is buy a good concordance.  A concordance is a book or a computer program that lists every verse in the Bible where a particular word is used.  Here’s the concordance I keep on my desk and it has saved me countless hours over the years of trying to locate specific passages in the Bible that were on the tip of my tongue but that I just couldn’t jar loose.  I might also add, the more you read your Bible and get to know it, the easier you’ll find it is to remember where certain passages are located.

   Here’s another reason why some people don’t read the Bible: It doesn’t conform to what I believe.  One pastor tells the story of the time he received a letter from a young wife who wrote him looking for advice.  In that letter she said: “I’m planning to divorce my husband because he isn’t growing as fast spiritually as I am.  In fact, I feel like he’s holding me back.  I’ve met this guy at our church fellowship who is already divorced.  He and I are so much more compatible spiritually and I believe God may be leading us together.  It feels right to me.  What do you think?” 

    I don’t really think that woman was all that interested in what that pastor thought.  I think she was just looking for someone who would hopefully justify what she knew was in direct conflict with what God told her in the Bible. 

   Here we need to understand, my friends, that the Bible is not a dialogue between God and us.  Rather, it is a revelation from God to us of himself, his will, what he has done for us, and what he expects of us.  Therefore we should never try to conform the Bible to some pre-existing belief system we’ve come up with on our own.  Rather we should conform our belief system to the Bible.

   Well, we have a number of other reasons why people don’t read the Bible, but our time for today is up.  We’ll pick it up with those reasons next week.  Until then, might I suggest that you get your Bibles out this week, if you haven’t done so for a while.  Dust them off.  Open them up.  Or use the CD’s that we’ll be giving out after the service.  Then begin at the beginning.  Start with Genesis 1:1 or Matt. 1:1 if you’re using the CD’s and get into the Word so that the Word might get into you and begin to make the difference in your life and your eternity that God intended it to.  Amen.