I was thinking today about the way in which bad Bible teaching is passed from one generation to the next. The problem (or part of the problem) seems to be that we don't question enough of our theological upbringing. This would apply to those raised outside the Christian faith as well as those within it.
Those of a non-Christian family, as well as those who choose not to believe, have certainly heard things about the Bible and what it teaches, but whenever I hear them talk of these things it is painfully obvious that they don't actually have any idea what the whole Bible teaches. Most of them never even read the parts they try to quote! They have only a small snapshot of one part of a passage. To build a theological perspective based on these snapshots of the scripture is similar to looking at five pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and stating that you know exactly what the finished product will look like. It is an idea that speaks of insanity, yet if you will take time to talk with non-believers about their perspective of the Bible you are going to find that they most likely have major misconceptions which they hold to be truths simply because they haven't ever questioned them. With these misconceptions in hand they claim to have a picture of what the Bible teaches, and that picture becomes the focus of their dislike of Christianity (of course the hypocrisy exhibited by us Christians doesn't help).
The other side of the coin is the division among Christians which is caused by a lack of Biblical education. More properly, I suppose the problem goes back to questioning the education we have.
When a follower of Jesus becomes a part of a local church they will most certainly begin to absorb the teaching of that church, as they should. It is proper for those who are more mature in their faith to raise up new believers, whether they are children or adults. The problem we run into is that each church, or group of churches, will have certain distinctions that give them a certain “flavor”. That is not to say that the differences themselves are bad. We need variety in our worship so that all Christians may find a place that they are comfortable. The problem comes from us calling those distinctions “Biblical truth”.
Many differences, such as choices of music, styles of prayer, and method of baptism are truly irrelevant. There is nothing in the Bible to give us a concrete direction on these and many other things, but churches and denominations will declare that their way is the right or proper way, thereby creating an “us versus them” attitude. To make matters even worse, the members of a church will have a tendency to simply believe what they are told without ever searching the Scriptures on their own. We take what we are taught as if it were a Biblical truth and the pass it on to our children who will then raise their kids according to how they were brought up, and so the confusion continues.
Sadly, very few Christians will take the time to study the Bible well enough to actually know what it says. I mean the “Big Picture” here. Most of the small things don't really matter, but there is a cohesive plan that God has shown us that actually begins to make sense when we look at the whole thing in a balanced way. Sometimes we need to throw out what other humans have told us and just read our Bibles to see this plan!
I would never say that all Bible teaching is bad. Truth does come to us through past teachers, but this truth can become horribly distorted because, just like non-believers, we may only be holding a few pieces of the puzzle, which is fine. God is probably not going to reveal more to you than you can deal with at this moment (I can picture Jack Nicholson screaming, “You can't handle the truth!”). But we cannot take the pieces that we are holding and try to morph them into the entire image. This causes the area of focus to become more important than the part that may not have been revealed to you as an individual yet. Then, when later faced with more of the puzzle pieces, you are forced to change your perspective or ignore the new pieces. The first prospect is painful and humbling, the second perpetuates bad theology.
I wish that I had a solution to all of this. The problem has been around for a long time and people do not want to back down from their theological positions long enough to consider a different perspective. Maybe we Christians can find common ground in how Jesus loved people and do the same in our own lives; after all, we call ourselves His followers.
