As pastors, how can we raise the bar for biblical understanding and practice in our local churches? Collin Hansen at Christianity Today recently interviewed Pastor David Platt, to answer how he is seeing this happen in his congregation, The Church at Brook Hills, in Birmingham, AL. Concerning the problem of biblical illiteracy amongst church attendees, Platt had this to say:
We have severely dumbed down the Word, and shown a lack of trust in the sufficiency of the Word in the way we preach. We find it necessary to supplement it with entertaining stories and quips or good practical advice for living the Christian life that are not based in the Word. This deficiency transfers into people content with a little “Word for the Day,” in a devotional book at best, as opposed to deep knowledge of Scripture.
The whole interview is well worth reading. Read it in it’s entirety over at Christianity Today online.
Also, if you have never heard David Platt preach, we at P4P highly recommend the sermon that Platt preached at this past SBC pastor’s conference. The message was titled, ““Are we going to die in our religion or are we going to die in our devotion?”:
David Platt: SBC Pastors Conference 2009 from Todd Thomas on Vimeo.
