This is a critical problem, one with chilling implications that can hardly be overstated. I know that various things in the church will inevitably change, that songs and hymns and spiritual songs will take new forms. I know that we are raising a video and gaming and external entertainment generation in which fewer young people (with many and notable exceptions, I realize) love books-and note that the Bible is a book—than twenty or thirty or forty years ago. (I recently heard a literacy and reading expert, a non-believer, quoting all the statistics proving this to be the case. So this is more than my observation, though my observation confirms it.) But in the final analysis, even Christian children in our evangelical subculture are woefully ignorant of Scripture.

Our church would probably be considered in the 90th percentile when it comes to Bible teaching. But ten years ago my wife gave a Bible quiz to a class of sixth graders at our church, nearly all of whom were from Christian homes and attended regularly. It was a large class, but how many of them do you think knew the answer to the question, "Who was King Solomon's father?" A grand total of one, who happened to be a pastor's kid—though many pastor's kids might have missed it.

My point is not that knowing Bible facts makes you godly. Of course, it doesn't. We could raise a generation of little Pharisees who know all the verses but have no heart for God. But children with a heart for God will only sustain it and grow in sanctification if they feed upon God's Word.

I recently said to one of our pastors that if I had it to do over again, and could restart our church, I would have an ongoing Bible Doctrine course and beef up our adult and children's education to make sure we are cultivating an environment in which people are drawn into the text of Scripture, weekly in church and daily in their homes. To daily study, meditate on, discuss and live out the truths of God's Word...this is what we desperately need.

Many people who have grown up in our churches know all the characters in the television programs Lost and 24 by name, but if pressed to name the twelve tribes of Israel (in many cases, even the apostles), they wouldn't get more than a couple. Ask "give two passages that indicate Christ is the only way to God," and you won't have to wonder why people are not sharing their faith in Christ. They don't know what to share. How can you share what you don't know? How can you know if you do not know God's Word?

God promises his Word will not return to Him empty, without accomplishing the purpose for which he sent it. God's Word, in the hands of His Holy Spirit, has the power to transform lives, to shape them for eternity. But our sanctification, as individuals and families and churches, can only go so far if we are not steadily gazing into God's Word. Jesus prayed, "Sanctify them in the truth; Thy Word is truth."

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