How and Why We Are Illiterate | Hosea 4:6 | Message 1
-
My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.
Hosea 4:6
Hosea’s warning is not ancient history—it’s now. The Message paraphrase sharpens it: “My people are ruined because they don’t know what’s right or true.” God is saying: ignorance is not neutral; it is deadly.
We live in a paradox. We have unlimited access to Scripture—phones, tablets, apps, print, and podcasts—yet biblical literacy is at a historic low. The problem isn’t that the Bible isn’t available; the problem is that the Bible isn’t known.
A Nation Drowning in Biblical Illiteracy
Christian researcher George Barna warns, “The Christian body in America is immersed in a crisis of biblical illiteracy.”¹
That’s not describing the secular world—that’s the church. Here’s one shocking example: when asked to name the most recognized “Bible verse,” the top answer was “God helps those who help themselves.” The problem? That’s not in the Bible.²
Barna reports that less than one in ten believers live by a truly biblical worldview.³ We are living through a famine of the Word.
The Collapse of Biblical Knowledge
New Testament scholar Gary Burge of Wheaton College explains, “If it is true that biblical illiteracy is commonplace in secular culture at large, there is ample evidence that points to similar trends in our churches.”⁴
At Wheaton—a leading evangelical university—freshmen from Christian homes were tested on basic Bible knowledge:
• Eighty percent could not place Moses, Adam, David, Solomon, and Abraham in chronological order.
• Half could not correctly sequence Moses in Egypt, Isaac’s birth, Saul’s death, and Judah’s exile.
• One-third could not identify Matthew as an apostle or locate Paul’s missionary travels in Acts.⁵
If the best-prepared students in Christian colleges are this uninformed, what does that say about the average church?
From Doctrine to Therapy
The roots of this problem reach back to the pulpit. In early America, preaching was doctrinal, biblical, and rigorous. Puritan preachers and revivalists like Jonathan Edwards expounded Scripture verse by verse, word by word. Their sermons trained people to think theologically and apply biblical truth intellectually.
Today, preaching has drifted from theology to therapy. The question is no longer “What is true?” but “What makes me feel better?” Sermons have become shorter, lighter, and more emotional than instructional.
A Synthetic Faith
Barna and sociologist Mark Hatch describe today’s Christianity as “a synthetic faith.”⁷ “We cannot really call the faith of American Christians a Bible-based faith,” they conclude.
Modern believers, they say, blend ideas from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, and secular psychology into their own personal religion. Truth becomes a mix of feelings, slogans, and self-help quotes—rather than Scripture.
Pollster George Gallup reached the same conclusion: “Americans revere the Bible, but by and large, they don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates.”⁸
We praise the Bible, but we don’t open it. We defend it in public yet neglect it in private. As Mark Twain observed, “A classic is a book which people praise and don’t read.”¹¹
Institutions That Once Anchored Literacy
Religion scholar Stephen Prothero describes how early America became a “people of the Book.” “Once upon a time, Americans were a people of the Book. They knew what it said. They carried Bibles, which they read, memorized, cited, recited, searched for meaning, and quoted for authority.”⁹
Prothero highlights six institutions that once secured biblical literacy in America—each now weakened or under attack:
1. The Home. Families in colonial America were legally required to teach children “to read and understand the principles of religion.” The Bible was the central textbook.
2. The Church. Puritan pastors preached methodically: text → doctrine → defense → application. They catechized children and adults in Scripture, the Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer.
3. Schools. Early textbooks such as Noah Webster’s Speller and the McGuffey Readers were saturated with Scripture. Literacy itself was seen as a means to understand God’s Word.
4. Sunday Schools. In the 1800s, millions of Americans learned Bible doctrine weekly under godly teachers.
5. Bible and Tract Societies. The American Bible Society (founded 1816) and others distributed millions of copies of Scripture across the nation.
6. The Colleges. Schools like Harvard (1636), William & Mary (1693), and Yale (1701) were established to train ministers. Harvard’s founding statement urged students “to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life.”
Today, these institutions are crumbling. The home is fractured. The church entertains more than it teaches. Schools and universities erase God from curricula. Sunday schools are dismissed as “outdated.”. And once-Christian colleges now often promote ideologies hostile to Scripture.
From Literacy to Illiteracy: Eight Turning Points
Israel’s Example – The 39 books of the Old Testament were held as the inspired Word of God. Parents were commanded: “Teach them diligently to your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7)
The Early Church – In the 3rd–5th centuries, church leaders convened 184 councils to defend biblical doctrine.
Skepticism and Agnosticism – Philosopher Bertrand Russell dismissed Scripture as “no more true than Homer” and called its moral teaching sometimes good and sometimes bad.¹⁰
Liberal Theology – Modernism entered seminaries, denying the Bible’s full inspiration.
Rise of Cults – Groups such as Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormonism placed their founders’ writings above Scripture.
Mysticism and Self-Deification – New spiritual movements teach that divine truth is found within rather than in God’s Word.
Neo-Orthodoxy – Karl Barth claimed the Bible “may contain” the Word of God but is not entirely God’s Word, undermining authority.
Cultural Christianity – Faith became emotional, experiential, and detached from doctrine—“my personal Jesus experience” instead of the faith based on solid biblical doctrine.
Each step led the church further from biblical authority and deeper into moral confusion.
The Call Back to the Word
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” — 2 Timothy 3:16
Doctrine — The Bible provides the structure for what we believe.
Reproof — It exposes our errors.
Correction — It shows the right path when we go astray.
Instruction in righteousness — It trains us to live in holiness and truth.
When we lose Scripture, we lose our compass. When we recover Scripture, we recover clarity, conviction, and courage.
Hosea 4:6 is a divine diagnosis: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” God’s call is urgent and clear—return to the Book. The Word of God is not merely a collection of ancient stories; it is living truth that still transforms hearts, homes, churches, and nations.
Footnotes
George Barna, Six Megathemes Emerge from Barna Group Research in 2010 (Barna Group).
R. Albert Mohler Jr., “The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy: It’s Our Problem,” AlbertMohler.com.
Barna Group Research, 2010 findings on worldview formation.
Gary M. Burge, “The Plague of Biblical Illiteracy,” Wheaton College.
Wheaton College freshman biblical literacy study, reported in The Plague of Biblical Illiteracy.
“Using Sunday School to Combat Biblical Illiteracy,” RevMNS.com, 2024.
George Barna and Mark Hatch, America at the Crossroads (Tyndale House, 1991).
George Gallup Jr., as cited in R. Albert Mohler Jr., “The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy.”
Stephen Prothero, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – And Doesn’t (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 21.
Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (London: Allen & Unwin, 1957).
Mark Twain, Following the Equator (Hartford: American Publishing Co., 1897).
