Bib ti l o e n in
instruc
Chris t t i i o a n n
educa
By Dr. Bryan Smith
T
HE MODERN CHRISTIAN school movement (in
America at least) started in the late 1960s. It began with
high hopes. “We will teach our children the Bible every day,”
early proponents announced, “and by the time they enter
adulthood, they’ll know the Bible better than any genera-
tion since the beginning of the Christian church.” It didn’t
happen. Why? For one thing, this was a superlative promise,
and superlative promises are rarely kept. But there’s another
reason: the movement lacked the vision needed to deliver
on the promise.
By the time the Christian school movement was off the
ground, many were succumbing to defective reasoning.
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Concerned that students might view Bible as “just another
subject,” administrators stripped Bible classes of any signifi-
cant academic requirements. Tests, if required at all, needed
to be easy. Teachers were sought for their ability to relate
to students, not for their skill in the Scriptures. The days of
instruction for Bible were reduced, only two days a week in
some schools. By the 1980s and 90s, many schools had no
overarching plan (K-12) for their Bible instruction, few (or
no) qualified teachers to do the instruction, and few assess-
ments. In other words, they were teaching Bible as they
would never teach math, history, English, or science.
What was the result? Schools were graduating students
who didn’t know what they believed. By the early 2000s,
administrators often lamented that their graduates were
easy prey for the unbelief of our age.
But there was healing in those laments. Many began to
put together a plan for solid Bible education. Over the past
several years, I’ve been encouraged to see a number of
schools turn their Bible programs around.
With the remainder of this article, I’d like to offer
some advice to those who are trying to do the same.
Here are three essential marks of a solid program of
Bible education.
ACADEMICALLY RIGOROUS
The teaching of Bible should be characterized by
academic rigor. I’m not saying that we need to make
Bible as difficult as it can possibly be. By academic
rigor, I mean instruction that is carefully planned
and appropriately challenging. A Bible program
has the right kind of academic rigor if it has
three characteristics.
First, it needs to cover the entire Bible. I know the
book of Proverbs was written with young people in
mind, but that doesn’t mean students should study
that book for five years straight. Paul was commit-
ted to teaching “the whole counsel of God” (Acts
20:27), and so should we. By the time students
complete the 12th grade, they should have been exposed to
every part of the Bible and every part of biblical teaching.
Second, a solid Bible program should be grade-level
appropriate. First-grade students should not be required to
tackle 12th-grade questions; neither should a high school
student be given assessments that belong in elementa-
ry school. The plan for grade-level appropriateness we are
following at BJU Press has students memorizing a catechism
in the lower grades, surveying the Old and New Testaments
in the middle grades, and in the upper grades studying Bible
doctrines, ethics, and a critical examination of world reli-
gions. Each level is well-structured and appropriately chal-
lenging for the students.
Third, the Bible should be taught in a way that develops
critical thinking. It’s not enough for students to memorize