Soon, I will be releasing the 100th Word Foundations article, but it isn’t ready for publication just yet. This week I’m posting a series of four one-minute radio spots I wrote in 2014. These are even more relevant today than they were when I wrote them two-and-a-half years ago. As indicated above, the series addresses a crisis of biblical illiteracy.
Here is part 1. You can access part 2 at the end of part 1, part 3 at the end of part 2, and part 4 at the end of part 3. I hope you find this information enlightening and helpful.
—B. Nathaniel Sullivan—
The Widespread Crisis of Biblical Illiteracy
A crisis is defined as a troublesome, difficult, or dangerous situation. Biblical illiteracy in the church is a true crisis. Dr. Kenneth Berding is in a position to know. Currently, he’s a New Testament professor at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology. Earlier, teaching at another school, Dr. Berding told each of his students to summarize an Old Testament character’s life. “Joshua was the son of a nun,” wrote one young man. Not only did he not know that Nun was Joshua’s father’s name; he also apparently wasn’t aware that the first Catholic nuns arrived on the world scene many centuries after Joshua’s lifetime. Another of Dr. Berding’s students, a young woman who wasn’t new to Christianity, asked after class if Saul, the man Jesus confronted on the road to Damascus, also served a king in Israel. Why is biblical illiteracy so severe and so pervasive? Tune in next time.
Deuteronomy 34:9
http://magazine.biola.edu/article/14-spring/the-crisis-of-biblical-illiteracy/
top image: Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne
This is part 1 of a 4-part series. Part 2 is available here.
Copyright © 2014 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All Rights Reserved.
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