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Encouraging Biblical Literacy: Empowering the Entire Priesthood

Once people understand that leadership looks a bit different in a house church and that our leaders don’t tend to have traditional “preaching roles,” there are a couple common follow-up questions our team receives. One is “So what do you do when you’re together?”(check out our Glimpse into Gatherings series for answers there). The other is some version of, “So how do you keep people from straying from healthy beliefs?” or “How do you know you’re not teaching unhealthy beliefs without wider denominational accountability?”


In this article, like all our others, we’ll attempt to unpack the answer to that question in two parts. First, we’ll get at the “heart” of the answer–the scripture we believe speaks to how to approach encouraging and teaching healthy beliefs, as well as how the house church structure can affect (and empower) biblical learning. Then, we’ll start taking a much more practical look at how we follow through on that heart. Often, that happens in ways that would be beneficial for any Christian group, though the house church structure may make it easier to implement.


First, we want to acknowledge that there is certainly a conversation to be had about accountability in doctrine and practice in church structures without official institutionalized oversight.


That said, there’s also a conversation to be had about how, far too often, institutionalized oversight fails us, too. We speak about both at length in our Rethinking Accountability podcast episode and plan to approach it from a different angle in an upcoming episode, so we won’t repeat too much of that here.


Foundationally, though, whatever the church structure and whatever form teaching takes, we absolutely believe in the power and importance of teaching sound doctrine. We’ll define as doctrine that:


  1. Logically flows from a respectful and informed understanding of the biblical text and

  2. Produces good spiritual fruit in peoples’ lives (since “each tree is known by its own fruit,” as Jesus says in Luke 6).


However, we believe it takes more than just listening to someone else preach sound doctrine for a mature Christian to truly understand and take ownership for their beliefs. That’s where we’ve found that most house churches focus on biblical literacy skills, or the ability for church members to read and interpret scripture on their own. 


The house churches that we know vary widely in their theological beliefs and in which biblical interpretation strategies they find integral to biblical study, as with Christians in any other context. However, they all hold to the importance of empowering believers with biblical thinking skills that go beyond what preaching alone can accomplish. Many institutionalized churches also do this; they just typically structure it as a parachurch opportunity instead of as a core part of the church’s “main event” or whole gathering time (we share more about the difference in “parachurch” structures in our article, Functioning Body Members).


House churches often focus on developing biblical literacy as a core part of our gatherings so we can more deeply empower every part of the body to serve and edify one another.


Generally, house churches generally structure their scheduled gatherings around bringing to life a few beliefs about what it means to very practically, tangibly, and consistently “be the church.” You can read more about both of these beliefs, and the scriptures they’re grounded in, in our Choosing House Church series, but a couple of those beliefs core to this idea are that:


  1. The church is meant to be a body in which every part has a purpose and a function and

  2. Every member of the body of Christ is a part of the royal priesthood.


We believe if each member has a deep understanding of how to approach biblical texts without necessarily relying on others’ teachings, then they can more powerfully fulfill both of those roles. 


By equipping Christians with biblical literacy skills, we prepare them to more effectively follow the call that Jesus gave to make not only believers but disciples and to teach them to follow his commands (Matthew 28:16-20).


Biblical literacy also provides a certain amount of protection for God’s people against unhealthy teachings. As the saying goes, “If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime.” We think there’s a time and a place for direct teaching to “give people fish.” We also think it’s more beneficial, protective, and sustainable to also teach people to learn and fish on their own.


At the same time, it’s important to recognize that there are certainly those who teach foundationally flawed biblical interpretation methods. It takes learning, close evaluation, and discernment to differentiate between when to humbly allow for differences of understanding and when an approach or conclusion is inherently distorted or even manipulative. To extend the metaphor, we want to teach people not only how to fish but also how to examine fish for any signs that it may be harmful to eat.


From the earliest days of Christianity, people have actively twisted scripture, like Peter talks about in 2 Peter 3:16, or misunderstood its purpose, as the Pharisees missed the message of Christ in the scriptures they examined in John 5:39-40. If the Jews in Paul’s day were considered noble for examining the scriptures to test Paul’s teachings (Acts 17:11), how much more so should we also examine the teachings of others (even trustworthy leaders) and our own beliefs from those teachings compared to scripture?


So how do we encourage healthy examination?


Before we hop into the more practical side of how to encourage biblical literacy, we also acknowledge that not every Christian that we would consider a brother or sister in the faith approaches biblical interpretation in the same way that the team here at Why House Church? does. We hope to simultaneously share experiences that will still be relevant and practical to those Christians while also honoring and sharing the approaches and practices we’ve seen encourage healthy scriptural examination that has produced good fruit. 


With that, we also want to acknowledge that our team takes a very “studious” approach to examining scripture. We take on the mindset that we do, after all, call it bible study for a reason. At the same time, we know that such an attitude can occasionally run the risk of over-intellectualizing. We hope that by sharing our perspective we might clear up some of the stigmas pushed by certain Christian subgroups around “scholarly” bible study.


It’s possible to wind up so caught up in the technicalities of such a complex text that we miss the point–but we can also “lose the forest through the trees” with less studious approaches, too. What we hope to impart is that deeper examination can help us more deeply and maturely know and understand the Lord’s heart and to approach the ancient, inspired text with humility to learn.


That brings us to the first practical approach we’ve seen and suggest for encouraging biblical literacy: 


Seek scholarly sources and sources of varying, even disagreeing perspectives, out of a humble recognition that none of us are infallible (unable to make a mistake), nor are we omniscient (all-knowing).


The balance, we know, lies in recognizing that the Bible was not written directly to us as modern day Christians for our best possible understanding, but it was still meant to renew Christians of all times. We know scripture is absolutely “inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). At the same time, we don’t always have all the necessary or correct information we may need to understand what its authors meant to communicate.


Just as we wouldn’t want to dishonor the authors or speakers (or friends or family members) we know today by misquoting or misapplying their words outside of their intended context, we seek to honor the biblical authors by understanding their contexts. That’s why we encourage finding more information and understanding from scholarly sources–those who have spent years in learned study of the scriptures, their authors, and their contexts.


We want these materials to guide us not just to gain knowledge for knowledge’s sake but so that we can more accurately understand what the Lord inspired the biblical authors to write and why.


We want to walk away with a certain amount of confidence that our study led to us knowing the Lord more accurately and more fully.


While, of course, many of such sources are available to all Christians, we’ve found that the house church setting allows us to amplify the impact of these resources by approaching them as a community. This is especially true when that community constantly reminds one another of their commitment to seek a deeper understanding of the Lord’s truth, even if it means finding out we’ve been wrong–or missing something–our entire lives. 


Let’s take a more practical and specific look at what incorporating scholarly resources in communal bible studies looks like. Some of the ways we’ve seen this are through:



While house churches often lean on resources like these in more freeform discussions, we’ve also seen them take more structured approaches, like:


  • Using consistent, group-led discussion questions about:

    • Confusions or surprises they had.

    • What they saw revealed about the character of God.

    • How their new understandings affect their current ways of thinking or living.

  • Guided discussion with questions more-specifically prepared for the needs of the church based on their context and the material at hand.

    • Sometimes everyone tries their hand or contributes to the questions.

  • “Hot seat” activities where two people pretend to take either side of a theologically debated issue after researching.

    • Sometimes, this also includes “phone a friend” support.

    • Sometimes everyone partners off instead of only one person on the “hot seat” at a time, and then they come back together to debrief and review.

  • Structured questions and writing prompts through more difficult-to-understand books–like Revelation–in response to scholarly context and understanding.


No matter the format, these practices require critical evaluation skills and foundational reading comprehension skills, though. To go back to the earlier metaphor, if we only take in more scholarly material without developing those skills, we risk simply giving people more fish, even if they’re healthier and meatier fish, but still leaving them without the skills to fish for themselves.


That’s why we believe that encouraging biblical literacy goes beyond just “outsourcing” teaching to external, scholarly sources.


It’s also about helping one another grow in discernment. While we don’t want to make discernment out to simply be a philosophy contest, it can also all too often be over-spiritualized: made into something about how our subconscious “gut feelings” should be more right if only we grow more faithful. But Paul called believers to be wise in what is good (Romans 16:19) and said that it is the renewal of our minds (not our spiritual “guts”) that leads us to discern the Lord’s will (Romans 12:2).


Because of that, we believe it’s important to develop wise thinking skills alongside a humble approach to bible-specific study practices. But before we jump too far into how we’ve seen house churches practically develop those skills, we need to make an important point:


Critical thinking skills alone do not lead to godly wisdom.


We see in the letter of James a sharp distinction between godly and earthly wisdom (James 3:13-18), a distinction in the characteristics and heart behind the “wise” conclusions. When we’re considering if our critical thinking practices are guiding us to more godly wisdom, we need to evaluate not only on the logical flow of thoughts but on the purposes and values behind them–that we are seeking wisdom to do good, not evil, and to know the Lord better, not boost our own ego (or for any other less-than-holy motivations).


In that same passage, though, we see that being “reasonable” or “open to reason” is a characteristic of “the wisdom from above.” So, how do we ensure that we’re open to reason–without being, as Ephesians 4:14-16 puts it, “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming”?


Within house church settings, we’ve seen church leaders and members support the body in developing wise reasoning skills in a number of ways. Often, they use their specific skills and backgrounds to teach, mentor, challenge, and lead. Practically we’ve seen churches develop these skills through studying:


  • How thinking can fall short via logical fallacies (on the more philosophical side) or cognitive distortions (on the more psychological side)

  • Foundational reading comprehension skills

  • More complex literary study practices meant to reveal meaning and purpose (note: literary does not mean “ficticious”)

  • The deductive reasoning skills and practices behind using the scientific method to evaluate hypotheses

  • How the human mind biologically develops and shapes our thought processes and biases–and how that can both help and hinder us in our study

  • Resources for evaluating both our own biases or topics of emotional tension

  • Manipulation tactics used by high-control groups (or cults) that hold people captive even to what may be seen as “obviously false” by outsiders


While these lists of practicalities are surely not “complete,” we hope they encourage and inspire creative connections for ways to bolster your own faith communities to more deeply understand our holy scripture. As with our A Glimpse into Gatherings series, our hope here isn’t to give house churches or other faith communities a list to pick from (though it’s fine if you do), but rather our goal is to provide touchpoints for potential inspiration and connection to your own people’s needs. 


Have another follow-up question to what biblical literacy looks like in a house church or why we might choose to study in these ways? We hope some of the content we’ve linked out to is a helpful place to start, but please don’t hesitate to contact us to have a discussion–or to make a suggestion for a future article!

 
 
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