Christians claim to believe the Bible is God’s Word. We claim it’s God’s divinely inspired, inerrant message to us. Yet despite this, we aren’t reading it. A recent LifeWay Research study found only 45 percent of those who regularly attend church read the Bible more than once a week. Over 40 percent of the people attending read their Bible occasionally, maybe once or twice a month. Almost 1 in 5 churchgoers say they never read the Bible—essentially the same number who read it every day.
So, it may be hard for Christian parents to impress upon their children the importance and value of reading the Bible on a regular. They notice that their parents aren’t reading the Bible. The less they read it as children, the less they will read it as the get older. The less they read it, the less important God’s Word becomes.
Why does it matter? If you seldom, if ever, read the Bible, you don’t know what it says. If you don’t know what it says, you are biblically illiterate. If you are biblically illiterate, you, and your children, are completely helpless against the indoctrination and lies purported by media, movies, books, education, politicians, and more. At that point, your mind is being made up for you. And it’s not the mind of Christ!
Worse, our children and youth can be easily convinced the Bible has no more value than any other religious book, and worse, that it’s not true at all. You have no idea how many young people write to me because of the movie Jesus Camp and tell me they grew up in Sunday School, but when they got older they became atheists because they were talked out of believing the Bible is true.
Muslim children are taught to read and memorize the Koran daily, and pray five times a day.
Orthodox Jewish children are trained to read the Torah daily, and pray three times a day.
Mormon children get up at 5 am to read the Bible and study the Old Testament. Daily. They pray with their families daily.
Christian children……….not so much.
Where do you stand on this important issue? Many are convinced America (as well as other supposedly Christian nations) is in the mess it is in because we no longer read and value what is written in God’s Word.
As a Christian parent, do you wonder what you need to do to raise children who are committed, passionate followers of Jesus Christ. Start by reading your Bible, and training them to do the same.
