Dan Olinger

Archaeology, Part 5: David 

February 2, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: The Days of Abraham | Part 3: Egypt | Part 4: Canaan 

What followed the invasion of Canaan was a time of loose confederation that we call “the period of the Judges.”

Snippets from this period are recorded for us in, not surprisingly, the book of Judges. A repeated theme in that book is that “there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jdg 17.6; 18.1; 19.1; 21.25). Those days saw a regular cycle of apostasy, invasion, repentance, deliverance through a judge, and then apostasy again.

There are a good many archaeological finds from this period—what archaeologists call the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages—but none that provide clear links to the wider “secular” history, so far as I am aware. No inscriptions naming any of the judges; no donkey jawbones with odd scratch marks.

Given the biblical theme, we should expect that the political situation would be unstable and that yearning for a king and the resultant stability would grow—similar, I suppose, to the way the US Articles of Confederation eventuated in a robust Constitution and balanced but limited federal government.

As we know, the first king, Saul, was a disappointment, but while he was still king, God had the prophet Samuel appoint his successor, the shepherd boy David (1S 16.12-13). David ended up reigning for 40 years, setting a standard that outshone all that followed, with the possible exception of his son Solomon.

We have some interesting archaeology referencing David.

Tel Dan Stele

For more than two centuries after the rise of rationalism in the 18^th century, biblical criticism viewed the David / Solomon stories as the stuff of legends, attempts by an insignificant Levant-based tribe to legitimize its past. No historical Saul or Goliath or Bathsheba or visit of the Queen of Sheba. No wise Solomon, and no David. Legends all.

Then, in 1993, archaeologists uncovered a paved courtyard in the northern city of Dan, which had been a worship center set up by Jeroboam I, the northern king after the split from Solomon’s son Rehoboam (1K 12.28-29). Upon turning over some of the paving stones, they found writing on the undersides. Three of the stones had been repurposed from a stele that had been broken up. The stele and inscription were ordered in the 9^th century BC, probably by Hazael, king of Syria/Damascus, in commemoration of his attack on the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. (You can understand why the memorial would have been broken up after Hazael’s dominance was over.)

The key element in the inscription is the king’s reference to “Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of the house of David” (the phrase “the house of David” highlighted white in the photo linked above). This is the first known historical reference to David.

In the years since its discovery, there have been arguments over details of interpretation (as there pretty much always are in archaeology), but most scholars agree that this is a reference to King David, and that he was a historical figure.

Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone)

Mesha was king of Moab, just east of the Dead Sea, in the mid-9^th century BC, during and just after the reigns of Jehoshaphat in Judah and Ahab in Israel. This stele, discovered in 1868, has been recognized for decades as containing the earliest historical reference to YHWH, the God of Israel.

But after the discovery of the Tel Dan stele, scholars looked more closely at this artifact to see whether it too might contain a reference to the house (“BT”) of David (“DWD”). In “a badly damaged section” they found “BT[?]WD,” which would say that, if the damaged spot contained the letter “D.”

Maybe, maybe not.

(Yes, I just linked to a Wikipedia article, which is just not done in academic writing, but this article is actually pretty good.)

So David has been rescued from the mists of legend to actual historical status.

Ever onward.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 4: Canaan

January 29, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: The Days of Abraham | Part 3: Egypt 

The Bible records that after the Exodus from Egypt and the Wilderness Wanderings in Sinai, Moses died before the Israelites, under Joshua’s leadership, conquered the Canaanite tribes and settled into their allotted tribal areas.

There are a couple of archaeological sites that connect the biblical story of the conquering of Canaan with “secular” history.

Ugarit

Ugarit was a major city on the Mediterranean coast just north of the Phoenician capital of Tyre, in modern Syria. It was there for a long time, but most of what we know from the site is from the Bronze Age, up to about 1200 BC. Ugarit was apparently at its peak between 1500 and 1200 BC. This coincides nicely with the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and by the succeeding period of the judges.

The site has yielded a wealth of cuneiform tablets, written in a language (“Ugaritic”) similar to Hebrew in some ways but distinct from it. These tablets describe trade and political relations across the Ancient Near East, particularly with Egypt. There’s even a letter from Merneptah (remember him?).

But the site’s two most significant contributions to biblical studies are in religion and language. There are numerous references to Baal and Dagan, with descriptions of religious practices that illuminate the reasons that God saw the Canaanite religions as reprehensible.

Ugaritic has also helped greatly in our understanding of Ancient Near Eastern languages. An example that I particularly like has relevance to 1 Samuel 13.21. The verse describes a problem the Israelites had with making weapons: they had to go to the Philistines to get their tools sharpened, and of course the Philistines wouldn’t sharpen any tool with a military application.

Here the KJV says, “They had a file for the mattocks.” The Hebrew word translated “file” is pim, and nobody had any idea what it meant. Working off the context, the KJV translators guessed that the Israelites had their own tools for sharpening their farm implements. But the word pim shows up in Ugaritic: it’s a monetary value, about 2/3 of a shekel. So the verse says that the Israelites had to pay that fee for getting a tool sharpened. The modern English translations, published after the archaeological work in Ugarit, reflect that understanding.

Deir Alla

Deir Alla is an archaeological site on the east side of the Jordan, about midway between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The site includes a wall that collapsed, likely from a tremor. We know that the area suffered a major earthquake during the reign of Jeroboam II in the mid-8th century BC (Amos 1.1), so that’s interesting.

But what’s really interesting is that the wall contains an inscription, written in red and black ink on plaster. This inscription records “the book of Balaam, son of Beor, a seer of the gods.”

As you might expect, the inscription is not in good shape, and there are words missing and writing that is not completely unambiguous. But the great majority of scholars, conservative and liberal, agree that this is a reference to the biblical Balaam.

Interestingly, the inscription does not include the prophecy recorded in Numbers 23 and 24. But the inscription’s existence argues strongly for the historical existence of this prophet, and the details coordinate nicely with how the biblical account describes him.

Next time, we’ll proceed to the time of David.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 3: Egypt

January 26, 2026 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: The Days of Abraham

As we proceed through Israel’s history, we find that Abraham’s grandson Jacob, in his old age, traveled to Egypt to live under the protection of his son Joseph, who had become the pharaoh’s assistant (Gen 47.1ff). At that time only 70 of his descendants came with him (Gen 46.27), but 400 years later they numbered in the millions; at the Exodus there were just over 600,000 men of fighting age (Num 1.46), so we can estimate that there were probably 2 million Israelites including old men, women, and children.

There’s not much if any archaeological evidence of these people in either Goshen or the Sinai Peninsula. However, this is exactly what we would expect. Since we know that Goshen was prime agricultural land (Gen 47.6), the Egyptians would have moved rapidly into it after the Israelites left, obliterating whatever material culture they left behind. And in the Sinai, while initially we would think that 2 million people would leave some traces behind, we must remember that Israel was itinerant for the entire 40 years; they would have built nothing, leaving behind just firepits and latrines, which would have decomposed and disappeared quickly.

But there are archaeological findings that raise our interest. I’d like to note two of them.

Thutmose IV Dream Stele

Between the paws of the Sphinx on the Giza Plateau, near the pyramids, stands a stele—what moderns might think looks like a large vertical tombstone. But stela do not normally mark a grave; they contain an inscription typically announcing some great person or deed. This one is about 12 feet tall and was erected by Pharaoh Thutmose IV, a son of Amenhotep II.

In the inscription Thutmose describes falling asleep on that spot one hot summer day and having a dream in which a god promised him that if he would clear the sand from the Sphinx, he would become Pharaoh.

Now, this interpretation is sketchy at best, but scholars have noticed that if Thutmose was Amenhotep’s eldest son, he would already have known that he was going to be Pharaoh, and he wouldn’t have had to do any landscaping for that to happen. Something must have happened, then, to an older brother.

Thutmose took the throne in 1401, 45 years after the exodus. He reigned just 10 years, which may mean that he was relatively old when he became pharaoh—perhaps, oh, 60 or 70.—and was perhaps 20 or so when he had the dream, just before his older brother died.

Of what?

Well, there was that whole firstborn thing.

Now, caution is due here. The timing seems right, but all we have is that he was told he would be pharaoh. Everything else is speculation.

But it’s interesting timing.

Merneptah Stele

This stele was placed by Pharaoh Merneptah (or Meren-ptah), who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BC, about two centuries after Israel occupied the land of Canaan. It contains 28 lines of hieroglyphic writing, most of which describe his military campaigns in North Africa. But the last 3 lines have drawn attention, because they describe a campaign in Canaan. One of the locations is “I.si.ri.ar” or “Ysrir.” Most scholars now agree that this is a reference to Israel. This would mean, then, that Israel is established in that land 200 years after Joshua.

Side note: Most critics place the Exodus, if they believe it happened at all, in the mid-13th century BC. Conservatives date it at 1446 BC, based on 1 Kings 6.1. That’s a large topic, too big to handle here. The Merneptah inscription could accommodate either date, but I would argue that the apparent solid establishment of the nation would favor the earlier date for the conquest.

So far this is the earliest inscriptional reference to Israel we have outside the Bible. Israel is established as settled in the land in the late 13^th century BC.

As we know, Israel’s history extends far beyond this date, and as time progresses, we would expect more and more artifacts to be extant. We’ll look at some of these in future posts.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 2: The Days of Abraham

January 22, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction 

My claim is that several archaeological finds demonstrate an intersection between the biblical narrative and the “secular” ancient history that everybody learns in high school and college. Depending on the details, most of these can be taken to demonstrate a reliability or historicity in the biblical account. I’d like to go through several of these, in roughly chronological order. (I say “roughly” because many of the objects cannot be dated precisely.)

Nuzi

Because the Middle East is largely desert, the Euphrates River dominates it. As it meanders its way southeast from the mountains of southeastern Turkey to the Persian Gulf, its water provides life to a crescent-shaped region from northern Syria through modern Iraq, paralleling its sister river the Tigris, and then through Kuwait, where it empties into the Persian Gulf. Not surprisingly, the kingdoms, cultures, and their cities snuggle up close to this “Fertile Cresent.”

Nuzi was a city near modern Kirkuk, Iraq, about 100 miles north of Baghdad, east of the Tigris. It was at its geopolitical height around 2000 BC, the time of Abraham.

Archaeologists found tablets that recorded the legal and social customs of that culture.

One tablet contains the following regulation:

“The tablet of adoption belonging to Nashwi … : he adopted Wullu …. As long as Nashwi is alive, Wullu shall provide food and clothing; when Nashwi dies, Wullu shall become the heir.”

Thus an aging, childless couple could adopt an adult son to care for them when they could no longer care for themselves, and when they died he would inherit their wealth. This appears to be the arrangement between Abram and Eliezer of Damascus (Gen 15.2). God, of course, had another plan for Abram’s wealth, and a lot more.

Side note: I’ve wondered about the inherent conflict of interest in these arrangements; when the adoptive parents die, the adoptee’s work ends, and he gets their money. I wonder how many adoptees hastened the death of their adoptive parents, whether by action or just neglect.

Another tablet reads as follows:

“Kelim-ninu has been given in marriage to Shennima. If Kelim-ninu bears, Shennima shall not take another wife; but if Kelim-ninu does not bear, Kelim-ninu shall acquire a woman of the land of Lullu as a wife for Shennima, and Kelim-ninu may not send the offspring away.”

Another side note: I’m not sure the land of Lullu would be the best place to find a good wife.

The infertile wife—and in those days the wife was always assumed to be the infertile one—bore the responsibility of finding a fertile wife for her husband. This too sounds familiar; Sarai, beyond the age of child-bearing, insists that Abram take her servant as a wife so that she (Hagar) can bear him a son (Gen 16.2). It was her responsibility.

This also helps explain why Abram was troubled when Sarai later demanded Hagar’s expulsion from the house (Gen 21.9-12). Given the relationship, that just wasn’t done.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Abram and Sarai lived under the laws of Nuzi; the Bible never places them in that city. But the city was in effect the capital of a large region in eastern Mesopotamia, and its laws would certainly influence the laws of the surrounding area, from Ur to Haran, across the eastern Fertile Crescent. It’s no surprise that the patriarch would have followed those cultural practices.

A connection, verified in historical records, between the practices of the ancient patriarch Abram and the culture in which he lived.

We’ll turn next time to Israel’s time in Egypt.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology and the Bible, Part 1: Introduction

January 19, 2026 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

The Indiana Jones movies have raised interest in archaeology, but they’ve also misrepresented it pretty badly. For starters, the guy in the cool hat accomplished 15 or 20 lifetimes’ worth of archaeological discovery in just a handful of movies. Most archaeology is pretty boring to people who aren’t cut out for it; it’s a lot of digging in the dirt, slowly, methodically, sweatingly, and finding nothing of substance over the course of several summer digs. A potsherd will make your week, and a scarab or a ring will make your year. The chances of your finding something historically or economically significant are slim.

Patience. Only those who love archaeology are likely to persist.

And over the decades, those who love it have found some remarkable things.

Archaeology is a global endeavor—or maybe I should call it a sport—and every continent has yielded finds to the persistent. But my field is the Bible, and since the biblical narrative is confined to Egypt and the Middle East—and mostly in Israel—my focus is on a relatively small portion of the globe.

Some few of these discoveries get attention in the popular press, and a disturbingly large portion of those popular reports are just wrong—sometimes accidentally, because the concepts are complex, and sometimes intentionally, to stir up interest and get hits on somebody’s web page. (No, archaeologists did not find chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea.)

But there are genuine, significant discoveries. Pretty much everybody’s heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Some significant discoveries tell us simply about what the culture was like in ancient days. (The linked article, by the way, has the “click-bait” title typical of reports in the popular press.) That’s probably the most common type. Others help us understand ancient languages better.

There’s another subset of these discoveries that I find particularly interesting, because of what they tell us about history.

If you grew up in a Christian school or home school, you studied both world history and the Bible. I don’t know if you noticed, but world history and biblical history seem to have different casts of characters.

World history had Hammurabi and Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar.

Biblical history had Adam and Noah and Abraham and David and Ezra and Paul.

Different characters.

Oh, there’s a little overlap. Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus and Caesar Augustus show up in both stories. But overall the two seem to be very different.

There are good reasons for the difference, of course. The biblical narrative begins before the start of written records or a surviving material culture—especially before the Flood—placing that period out of the reach of historians. And after that, the biblical story is focused on the development of a small nation without much political power, rather than on the great world powers, except as their plans intersect with that small nation of Israel.

But skeptics often consign biblical history to the legend bin because the stories are so different.

And thus I consider certain archaeological finds interesting because they bridge the gap between the two stories; they serve to tie the two stories together in a historical way.

Something I particularly like about these intersections is that they tend to be small. They don’t connect David or Solomon, say, with the incipient Assyrians, which would get serious headlines; rather they tell us about little details, such as the name of Jeremiah’s scribe, or the amount of gold traded between a couple of cities in the time of Abraham. I would suggest that a forger is not likely to be interested in these sorts of data. They don’t have the popular punch of, say, Hitler’s diaries.

In the next few posts, I’d like to present a few of these discoveries, ending with an observation about their significance.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 4: What, and Where / How?

January 15, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Why Disciple? | Part 3: When?

As I anticipated in the previous post, I think a couple “journalism questions” remain for our survey of discipleship:

What happened when you were converted?

Where do you go from here?

And because I’ve written on these questions here before, I think a couple of links and a comment or two might be sufficient for this post.

We begin discipling a new convert by explaining to him where he is, or what happened to him when he came to Christ in repentance and faith (or, in today’s common expression, “got saved”). God was doing things in his heart before that happened, and a whole raft of things, many of which he didn’t notice, happened to him at the moment of conversion. And God’s work will continue in him in the days ahead, and for the rest of his life.

He needs to know these things in order to understand his place in God’s plan now.

I’ve written about those things in this series, using the analogy of opening presents at Christmas. It’s a long series (22 posts!), because it needs to be.

We conclude by answering the question “Where do we go from here?” To some degree the last few posts of the series linked above will help to answer this question—there’s progressive sanctification and filling and glorification—but our new brother will need some help with getting there—with fulfilling his responsibilities in the shared (“synergistic”) work of progressive sanctification.

For these helps, I suggest another earlier series, in which I use the analogy of working out, or building muscle. That’s just 6 posts, covering what we call the three (or maybe five) “means of grace.” It’s a subject that I think is taught less clearly than it ought to be these days.

May we all comprehend, and apprehend, our inheritance and our responsibilities in this remarkable spiritual journey.

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 3: When?

January 12, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Why Disciple?

I suppose there are two “when” questions having to do with discipleship:

When should I seek to make disciples (“evangelize”)?

When should I call for a decision in evangelism?

The first question, I think, has already been answered in our survey of the Great Commission: “As you are going,” Jesus said, “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 29.19).

That means it’s a natural extension of daily life.

Now, Jesus told us to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Mt 10.16). I know there are people who would disagree with me—vigorously—but I think that statement at least implies that we should evangelize in ways that are reasonably adapted to the culture in which we’re working.

An example. Some Christians preach on street corners. You can do that; I’ve done some of that myself, in years past. But in our culture, such people are typically viewed as, well, crazy, or at least socially maladjusted, and I haven’t heard of their having much success. The only response I ever got was from someone who was inebriated, and there was no way that I could take him through the plan of salvation in that condition.

Evangelism is simply a part of the way we live our lives. Recently I flew somewhere on Southwest, which at the time didn’t assign seating. The way that works is that the first people to board grab either an aisle or a window seat, as close to the front as possible, and then they all fervently hope that nobody sits in the middle. I boarded relatively late, and as I walked down the aisle I could see that fervent hope on every face I passed. I managed to get an aisle seat waaaay in the back, and when a big guy came down the aisle to claim the middle seat, I just slid over so he could have the aisle seat. He commented on that, and I said, “I’m the littlest guy in the row; makes sense for me to sit in the middle.” (I’m happy to say that this was not a transpacific flight; if it were, the decision would have wrenched my soul.) We had a long and congenial conversation about spiritual things—turned out he was already a believer—and the guy on my right heard the whole thing, even though he wasn’t inclined to join the conversation.

So when do we evangelize? All the time. As we go. Wisely.

My answer to the second question might be controversial as well. I’ve already written some thoughts on how much pressure we place on children to convert. Stop here and go read that brief piece. I’ll wait.

No, really. Go read it.

All right. We can do serious damage when we pressure people to accept something they don’t understand or agree with. Prayers are not magic words; God knows the heart, and even a prayer with all the right words is useless if the one praying doesn’t mean them.

That’s true of adults as well as children. Would that enebriated man on the sidewalk in Boston have been regenerated if he had prayed a prayer that I recited to him, but that he likely would remember only dimly, if at all?

No, he wouldn’t have been. But if he did remember it dimly, then for the rest of his life he could tell future evangelists that he’d already done that, and “it didn’t work for me.”

There’s no way I’d set up a situation like that.

So when do you call for a decision?

The Bible says that salvation consists of repentance—turning from sin attitudinally—and conversion—turning to Christ in faith. Repentance, without which salvation simply will not happen, is animated by conviction of sin, a sense of sinfulness and of guilt before God. And how does conviction happen?

Someone shouting at you?

Someone telling you a sad story that moves you deeply?

Someone telling you about the eternal fires of hell and scaring you half to death?

No. Not by themselves.

Conviction, the Scripture says, is a work of God’s Holy Spirit.

So when do we call for a decision, a prayer of repentance?

When we see evidence of conviction. In a child, or in an adult.

Otherwise, we’re just inoculating the person against evangelism.

Next time, we’ll finish the series by laying out the content of discipleship:

What happened when you were converted?

Where do you go from here?

Part 4: What, and Where / How?

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 2: Why Disciple?

January 8, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

If we’re going to be equipped to disciple others, we need to start with the basics:

What is discipleship?

Why is this a priority? (or, to put it more bluntly, why should I care?)

I’m going to answer those questions in reverse order.

It all begins with God’s will.

Just before he returned to heaven, Jesus left his disciples with a command, the one we call The Great Commission. It appears in Mark 16.15, Luke 24.46-49, and Acts 1.8, but its classic expression is in Matthew 28.18-20:

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. ¹⁹Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.

Jesus begins by asserting that he has obtained all the authority (“power”) there is in the universe.

That’s quite a claim, and it’s backed up elsewhere in Scripture (e.g. Co 1.14-20).

He’s not bluffing.

So the Great Commission is based on the infinite, universal authority of the one giving it. It’s not merely an option.

And what does this authority command?

The main verb of what follows is “teach.” This word means simply to “make disciples.” When are we to do that? Here Jesus uses a participle, “going,” or “as you go.” So whenever you’re out, take the opportunity to make disciples of all people groups. Of course, to do that you need to go to all the people groups. That’s a key basis of what we call “missions,” and I note that he didn’t restrict the command to a subset of professionals. His command assumes that we’ll all be going, and that as we go we’ll take the time to make disciples in the places where we go.

Next he uses two more participles to tell us how we’re to do that. First, we’re going to baptize them. That assumes, of course, that they will have been converted, will have expressed repentance from sin and faith in Christ. And second, we’re going to teach them what they need to know—what Christ has commanded of his disciples.

As the church has functioned throughout its history, some have specialized in certain people groups—and that makes sense. But all of us have been given this command, and by an infinite authority at that. As we go, wherever we go, we should be telling of Christ’s work, encouraging others to repent and believe, and helping to teach them what happens next.

We all have the obligation to evangelize. All of us. Not just the professionals, whether pastors here in the States or overseas. And once, through our evangelistic labors, someone has believed, we have the obligation to teach him. To disciple him.

Apparently, 2 out of 3 of us aren’t doing that.

Maybe they’re too busy screaming at their political opponents about how stupid they are.

I doubt that’ll open many doors. And I doubt that our infinite, universal authority will be pleased with our priorities, or our devotion to the real cause.

The Bible includes many examples of evangelism; we would do well to study those examples and consider how we might apply them to our time and culture:

Pentecost (Ac 2.38)

Temple (Ac 3.19-26)

Sanhedrin (Ac 4.12)

Sanhedrin 2 (Ac 5.31)

Simon (Ac 8.20-23)

Saul (Ac 9.20; 22.16; 26.18-20)

Cornelius (Ac 10.43; 11.17-18)

Antioch (Ac 13.38-39)

Iconium (Ac 14.1)

Gentiles (Ac 15.9)

Philippian Jailer (Ac 16.30-31)

Berea (Ac 17.12)

Athens (Ac 17.30-31)

Corinth (Ac 18.8)

Ephesus (Ac 19.4-5, 18-19)

Rome (Ac 28.23-24)

There’s no lack of patterns provided.

Next time we’ll consider how to proceed in evangelism.

Part 3: When? | Part 4: What, and Where / How?

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 1: Introduction

January 5, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We hear a lot about discipleship in the church these days. Pastors and teachers often point out that discipleship is the focus of the Great Commission (we’ll get to that in a bit), but a recent Barna study (2022) concluded that while about 56% of Christians are being discipled, only about 33% are discipling others.

A couple of caveats.

Accurate surveying is a complicated business; minor inattention can produce huge errors, and every survey that does its statistical work prudently will report a certain “margin of error,” usually 3 to 7 percent, based on sample size and other factors. (The margin of error in this study is +/- 1.5% at 95% confidence.) But even a very large sample size can yield unreliable results—as is the case in virtually every Facebook poll, in which the respondents self-select. That said, Barna is a well-regarded research group.

Nowhere does the article report how Barna defined “Christian”; it says simply that the respondents self-identified as Christian. (I didn’t read the study itself, which is behind a paywall.) Given Barna’s history, I think it’s safe to assume that they were interacting with evangelicals.

The article also doesn’t define “discipleship,” though I’m sure the study itself does. Given that only 56% percent of Christians are “being discipled,” I’m confident that the definition does not include pulpit ministry.

With those factors in mind, I think we can take the percentages as reasonably accurate. That said, though the percentage of Christians who are being discipled is significantly higher than the percentage of those who are discipling others, I still think it’s lower than it ought to be; and the number of those discipling others is disturbingly low.

When a subset of the survey group was asked why they’re not discipling anyone, the most common response was that they didn’t think they were qualified. I rather suspect that apathy and/or fear play a larger role than the survey indicates, but because people are not likely to give answers that find fault with themselves, I doubt that any survey would yield reliable data on that question.

So then. A large percentage of self-proclaimed Christians are rendering only casual obedience, if that, to Jesus’ last command.

Maybe we should try to clarify, in a few posts, what discipleship is all about.

I plan to proceed by tracking the basic journalistic questions: