The Bible is boring

I have heard many times in the past that most ‘Christians’ don’t know the Bible. I’ve heard that they don’t know the basics of what Scripture says, that many don’t know the Ten Commandments. The places I heard those things were the same places I heard that most ‘Christian’ kids will abandon their faith in their teens.

For a good number of years I had no understanding of why those things happened and I took them as they were presented by whoever was telling or writing them. Now I understand. Now I know the difference.

Those ‘Christians’ don’t know the basics of Scripture because they aren’t regenerate. Those ‘Christians’ don’t know the Ten Commandments because they don’t have enough interest in what they believe to want to know them. And those ‘Christian’ kids…were just living out what they’d been taught as children until they got old enough to make their own choices at which point they ‘abandoned’ a faith they never felt and went the way of their heart.

I’ve also heard that a lot of ‘Christians’ don’t know enough about what they believe to be able to defend the belief they hold. Somewhere I read that most atheists know more about the Bible, more about God, more about Christ than most ‘Christians’ do.

What does that say for the ‘Christians’?

At face value it doesn’t say much for them. It presents a sorry excuse of what Christianity is to the world. It presents a sad example of what being a follower of Christ is.

But for those that are truly saved…there is a different picture. It’s one where, even without a complete understanding of the Bible, we can defend our beliefs. We can explain what we believe even long before we fully understand just what it is that makes our faith different.

And as we grow and mature in Christ we begin to understand, to learn, to get to the point where we do know exactly what we believe and our faith is unshakable.

I read something recently that said it is a Christian’s duty to be so acquainted with the Word of God and His plan for mankind that when they encounter deceivers they can defend themselves against any false teaching.

How can a ‘Christian’ that finds the Bible boring come to that kind of acquaintance with the Scriptures? How can they be expected too?

They can’t.

Even the most passionate student of the Bible can’t fully understand Scripture until they are saved by Christ and their eyes are opened to the Word, to the Truth, to the mystery.

And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Matthew 13:11-13

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  Colossians 2:1-3

To you it has been given to know… Until it is given no one can fully understand the Scriptures. They can read them, memorize them, know the Bible from Genesis to Revelation but until it is ‘given’ to them…they can’t know.

I can remember how I felt when others would tell me I needed to read the Bible and I knew I couldn’t understand it. I remember how my grandmother was a King James only Bible user and I was raised without any knowledge that there were other versions of the Bible. I was grown before I ever encountered anything other than a KJV Bible. I well remember how amazed I was to realize at the age of nineteen that I could read and understand the Bible. At that point I thought it as the version of Bible I had been using that made me unable to understand but long after I had an easier to read version I still found it hard to stick with reading the Bible.

Until the Lord opened my eyes to what was contained within the Scriptures. From that day on I found it fascinating.

When my daughter tells me the Bible is boring my immediate reaction is ‘no, it’s not’. But now I wonder…is that the right response. Just because it’s not boring to me doesn’t mean it isn’t to her. Just because my eyes have been opened, my veil lifted, doesn’t mean hers has.

And as I write this I can’t help thinking of all the ‘Christian’ kids that leave the faith they’ve been raised in. How shamed are they by their families for turning away from a believe they never held? How confused are they because their hearts and minds can no longer hang onto the faith they were raised to believe in?

Those ‘christian’ kids aren’t turning away from being a Christian…they never were one. They may have said the prayer, they may have been raised in ‘church’, may have been baptized but if they turn away they were never a Christian to begin with.

How many times are those kids made to feel like something’s wrong with them because they couldn’t hold onto what they were raised to believe?

My daughter told me…not all that long ago…that she feels as if everything she was raised to believe was a lie. And all because I was once a professing ‘Christian’ and have since been saved by the Lord. Because my eyes were opened and I was able to see the lies in the faith I once followed, in the beliefs I instilled in my children, my daughter thinks it’s all a lie. And it is. But figuring that out shook what faith she did have.

How many other kids are ‘shaken’ as they leave their childhood beliefs behind and follow their hearts into whatever beliefs they hold? How many are made to feel that they are wrong for believing as they do?

How many feel horrible because they have to admit…the Bible is boring?

And what should a Christian say in response to such a statement?