Biblical Literacy: Adding to Virtue Knowledge -- 1 Peter 1:5-7

1 Peter 1:5-7


"For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love." (NRSV)

We are to add to our faith virtue (or goodness) and then add to our virtue knowledge.

I find it interesting that Peter places virtue before knowledge. This isn’t any kind of special knowledge; it’s simply the knowledge that comes from learning, from study. It is another word that describes, simply put, literacy. Peter is saying that we can’t understand what we read until we have decided to control our behavior and our choices. But once we do that, then we need to add knowledge to that virtue.

Illiterate and literate. These are two words that I use almost daily, being a teacher. For me, working in an elementary school, these words immediately describe the state of a student’s ability to use the English language. A student who is literate can both pronounce and understand what she reads. A student who is illiterate struggles with pronunciations, even of simpler words, and often has difficulty understanding what was read.

Literacy can apply to any number of subjects. Someone who is literate in math understands math concepts and can use them to solve math problems. Someone who is literate in science can define science terms and discuss, at length, various scientific concepts.

There is also spiritual literacy, biblical literacy. Literacy for a believer has to do with knowing what the Bible says and being able to accurately apply it to their lives. And there are various levels of literacy for Christians.

The first level of literacy is general familiarization. This would be similar to learning how to recognize and pronounce words in reading literacy. When a child learns how to read, he first learns the sounds of the letters, then how the sounds are blended together, then how to recognize syllables, and so forth. He then learns the meanings of new words. In the first level of biblical literacy, it’s important for the Christian to become just generally familiar with the structure of the Bible, the fact that it’s divided into two sections (with a 400 year gap in between), the issue of why certain books were accepted into the Bible and why others weren’t, why the books are divided the way they are and so forth. There are any number of websites that can be used to learn introductory literacy. Doing a quick search, I came up with a couple (but there are more):
http://basicsofthebible.org/studyguide/index.html

http://www.teensundayschool.com/97/overview/bible-basics.php


It’s important for believers to have a firm grasp of the basics of biblical literacy so that we can "rightly divide" the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).

The second level of literacy is getting a general familiarization with each book of the Bible. This is easily done by simply reading through the Bible. There are a vast number of "plans" that allow you to read through the Bible in a year. Here’s one plan that organizes you to read through the Bible in 90 days: http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-reading-plan/ninety-day-challenge.html. Reading through the Bible once—simply reading it—is important to get a good overview of what each book actually says. When you read through the Bible, you are doing that, just reading. You are getting the bigger picture.

The third level of literacy is then to begin studying more in depth. This level of literacy is actually divided into three parts of study: Biblical deep study, doctrinal study, and historical study. At this point, the believer should begin to add Christians books to their study (but not to substitute those books for the Bible). It’s important to know which books to read (and which authors to trust). Pastors or trusted Christian elders may be able to point you in the right direction (though, unfortunately, not all pastors are readers). Some authors that I recommend to other Christians include A. W. Tozer, John Wesley, Paul E. Billheimer (particularly Destined for the Throne), and Alan Redpath. There are also good resources on the Internet, though you have to be very careful because there’s a lot of junk out there as well.

Once a believer has reached the third level of literacy, she should begin to learn about the various doctrinal positions presented in the Bible, be able to compare those with the church of her choice, and then research those in scripture. This is a lot of work, so you may want, at this point, to join up with other believers in a study group to do this together. But it’s important to know what various doctrines believe and then to prayerfully decide where the Lord would have you.

Unfortunately, in America, biblical illiteracy is becoming more and more prevalent:

"According to the 2014 ‘The State of the Bible’ report by Barna Group and American Bible Society, a majority of U.S. adults (81 percent) said they consider themselves highly, moderately or somewhat knowledgeable about the Bible. Yet less than half (43 percent) were able to name the first five books of the Bible. The statistics are similar to the previous 2013 report which also showed that only half knew that John the Baptist was not one of the 12 apostles." (I highly recommend reading this entire article if you are interested in this issue: http://www.christianpost.com/news/biblical-illiteracy-in-us-at-crisis-point-says-bible-expert-121626/)

The problem with biblical illiteracy is that it stands between us and Christian maturity. We cannot move onto self-control, endurance, and godliness until we actually learn what scripture has to say about these things. We cannot become more like Christ—Who is the Word—until we learn what the Word actually says.

© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.