Simply teaching the Bible, simply

Why do Christian parents bring their children up to know and read the Bible? Is this just indoctrination or are we really giving them a solid foundation for life? In this study Pastor Barry asks the question ‘how do you know what you know’? What is basis for what you believe? Whether you have realised it or not, we all accept most of what we know on the basis of faith. We might have faith in what our parents tell us, or what we learned at school or university. However, almost all of this is taking what someone else tells us – on the basis of faith, faith that what we are being told is true. Very little of what we know we have actually ‘discovered’ and empirically tested for ourselves. The Bible exhorts us to think soberly (literally, ‘exercise the mind’) with regard to the things we believe (Rom 12:3). We are not to just take a blind leap in the dark with our lives in the hope it will all work out OK in the end! What may come as a surprise to some is that the Bible does not expect people to simply believe it. Nowhere are we told to just accept it and don’t ask questions!