FromNowUntilForeverBook8.5x5.5 REV.indd

“Yes sir,” came the reply. “Which part do you like the best?” “I believe I like the New Testament the best.” “Would you tell us the story of the prodigal son?” “Sure,” said the preacher, as he began: “There was a man with the Pharisees named Nicodemus, who went down to Jericho by night and there he fell upon stony ground and the thorns choked him half to death.The next morning Solomon and his wife, Gomorrah, came by, picked him up, carried him into the ark through the eastern gates of pearl; but on the way into the ark, he hung his hair on a limb, and he hung there 40 days and 40 nights; and after- wards he hungered. And the ravens came and fed him five thou- sand loaves of bread and two fish.The next morning he followed a strange star in the east, caught a ship for Nineveh, where he found Lot’s wife, a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night. And there was Delilah sitting upon a wall, and he said, ‘toss her down boys!’ And they said,‘How many times shall we toss her down, seven times?’‘No, seventy times seven.’ So they tossed her down 490 times. She burst asunder in their midst.They picked up 12 basketsful of the fragments thereof and in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?”At that point, he sat down. After several moments of silence, the chairman stood to his feet. Choking back the tears, he said, “Committee, I believe we ought to call this man as our pastor. I know he’s young, but he re- ally knows his Bible!”We chuckle over such an account, yet it’s not completely outlandish. For proof of a burgeoning biblical illiteracy crisis, consider these results from various surveys… • Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels. • Many professing Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples.

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