Should We Expect Evangelicals to Read and Know the Bible?

Seven months after my partner and I married, we left Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, and returned to my birthplace, Bryan, Ohio. By then, Polly was six months pregnant.

We immediately found a church to attend: Montpelier Baptist Church. Not long after we joined the church, Pastor Jay Stuckey asked me to be his unpaid assistant; to primarily work with and expand the church’s languishing bus ministry. On Easter that year, we brought eighty-eight riders to church, and soon added a second bus.

Montpelier Baptist was a typical Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church. A growing congregation that reached five hundred in attendance on our last Sunday there, the church was, by all accounts vibrant and exciting. It was, after all, the late 1970s; a time when IFB churches were rapidly growing and were some of the largest churches in the United States.

Montpelier Baptist had a big advertising sign on Route 15 that stated the “essence” of the church: The Blood, The Book, and The Blessed Hope. The book was, of course, the King James Bible, which was considered inspired, inerrant, and infallible. You would think in such a setting that both the pastors and the congregants really believed the Bible and practiced its teachings. You would think Pastor Stuckey’s preaching was focused on teaching the whole counsel of God, from table of contents to concordance. You know, preaching THE BOOK.

Both Pastor Stuckey and I were products of the time. Our sermons were topical or textual. In Pastor Stuckey’s case, most of his sermons focused on two subjects: salvation and prophecy. Again, this was typical of the time in IFB and Evangelical congregations. I heard countless sermons on the rapture, the tribulation, the millennium, and even out-there subjects such as the illuminati, the Rothschilds, and the mark of the beast. Exciting times, to be sure, especially for a congregation primarily aged forty years and under. From an overflowing nursery to packed pews, people came to hear Pastor Stuckey’s sermons. It’s too bad that congregants only heard sermons on topics or texts Pastor Stuckey deemed important. I’m not faulting the man as much as explaining the times. In 1979, I had never heard an expository sermon — not one. As a result, church members, no matter how long they attended a particular church, never heard sermons on all sixty-six books of the Bible. Unfortunately, this bred ignorance, producing members who loved THE BOOK, but didn’t know much of what it taught.

Decades later, not much has changed. If anything, Bible ignorance is worse, an epidemic. Sermons focus on salvation and felt-needs, instead of competently and exhaustively teaching the Bible. Congregants are still “encouraged” to read and study the Bible, but I suspect most pastors have given up making this a reality. Today, the only Bible teaching many Evangelicals get is a thirty-minute sermon on Sunday, and maybe thirty minutes more at a group or weeknight Bible study. These studies are typically shallow too, often using pre-published materials written by the latest, greatest Evangelical “star.”

This is not to say that this is the case for every Evangelical church and pastor. I may disagree with what Evangelicals believe, but I do know of churches and pastors who consistently and faithfully teach the Bible. I can’t fault their devotion and commitment, even if I have big issues with their interpretations.

In the mid-1980s, thanks to John MacArthur and the Puritan authors I was enamored with, I embraced Calvinism, abandoned preaching topical and textual sermons, and started preaching expositionally — verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book. No more pulling sermon titles and texts out of a hat or preaching what God “laid upon my heart”. I let the text guide my preaching week by week. For example, over the course of a year or so I preached 120 sermons on the book of John. I turned my focus from hyper-evangelism to being the best preacher and expositor I could be. I felt I owed congregants a well-crafted sermon that taught them the Word of God and inspired them to do good works — without which faith is dead,

Were my congregants Biblically smarter than the average Evangelical? Some were, to be sure, but many members treated me as their sole source of Bible knowledge. That’s one of the reasons I thought it important to teach church members all of the Bible. Instead of haranguing people for not reading and studying the Bible, I decided to meet them where they were. Way too many preachers are more concerned about where they want people to be than where they are. When I finally learned this, it transformed the way I looked at people who called me “Preacher.”

Evangelicals claim to love the Bible, but for most of them, it’s a shallow, superficial love. (Why that is beyond the scope of this post.) When quizzed about their beliefs, you quickly learn their knowledge is a mile long and an inch deep. And sadly, many preachers aren’t much better. Worse, you have those who think they know the Bible, but, in fact, all they know is what they’ve heard or read in books by Evangelical authors. The goal is maintaining fidelity to certain doctrines and practices — the faith once delivered to the saints, as interpreted by the pastor. Dare to challenge their assumptions and you’ll be labeled a liberal and an apostate.

Just because Evangelicals “say” they know the Bible doesn’t mean they do. Remember that when you engage in discussions with Evangelicals. Take the long road and be patient with them. Resist the temptation to insult them; that is, unless your goal is to be an ass. I try to treat conversations like I would chatting with a friend on a Friday night at the pub. Always live to drink another day.