By Dan Ellsworth
Churches have spent considerable time learning how to make Jesus accessible to people who know very little about Him, and for good reason. We explain unfamiliar language, provide context, connect Scripture with everyday life, and remove barriers capable of making Christianity feel inaccessible before someone has a chance to understand it. A congregation may include someone opening a Bible for the first time sitting only a few seats away from someone who has studied it for fifty years, so faithful teaching has to find a way to speak to both. But somewhere within our desire to help people understand Jesus lies a question worth considering: In making Jesus accessible, have we sometimes made Him smaller?
Jesus faced the challenge of speaking profound truth to ordinary people long before we did, and His approach is worth considering. He regularly began with things people already understood, using bread, light, doors, shepherds, roads, vines, water, sheep, seeds, and soil to reveal truths reaching far beyond the objects themselves. He did not require people to master a theological vocabulary before listening to Him, but neither did He reduce the truth to whatever they were prepared to understand in the moment. Jesus made the entrance accessible while leaving the depth intact.
Consider the Bread of Life. Bread could hardly have been more familiar to the people listening to Jesus, especially after He had fed thousands from a few loaves and fish. They understood physical hunger and knew what bread provided, but Jesus refused to leave the conversation there. When the crowd pursued Him after the miracle, He moved their attention from the bread they had eaten toward the deeper hunger within them and finally toward Himself: “I am the bread of life.” He began with something everyone understood and used it to lead them toward something they did not.
The same pattern continues through His other “I AM” statements. Everyone understood darkness and light, but “I am the light of the world” reached far beyond the experience of walking through darkness. Sheep and shepherds were ordinary parts of life, but when Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd, He stepped into biblical imagery reaching through Israel’s Scriptures and into God’s relationship with His people. Thomas wanted to know the way forward, while Jesus responded with something much larger than directions: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Thomas wanted to know where to go, while Jesus pointed him toward the One he needed to follow.
Perhaps this is where biblical literacy becomes more important than simply helping Christians know more Bible. It gives people enough of Scripture to recognize more of what Jesus is saying, allowing something they may have understood simply at first to take on greater depth as the rest of the biblical story begins surrounding it.
A Christian can understand the comforting image of Jesus as a shepherd without knowing much about the Old Testament, and there is nothing wrong with beginning there. But Psalm 23 eventually makes the image larger, Ezekiel adds another dimension, and Israel’s history with faithful and unfaithful shepherds gives the words greater context. The person has not moved beyond the Good Shepherd toward some more sophisticated version of Jesus. They have simply been given more Scripture through which to understand what His words have carried all along.
The same is true when Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Someone unfamiliar with the Old Testament can still understand Jesus is making an extraordinary claim but take the reader back to Moses standing before the burning bush, asking what name he should give the Israelites when they ask who sent him, and God answers, “I AM WHO I AM.” John 8 suddenly carries greater weight. Jesus reaches beyond Abraham and into the name God revealed to Moses, while the religious leaders listening to Him understood the implication well enough to reach for stones.
This creates an important challenge for anyone helping Christians grow because we want people to understand what they hear, see how Scripture speaks into their lives, and leave church believing the Bible is something they can actually engage rather than an ancient book requiring years of study before it begins making sense. Accessibility serves an important purpose in opening the door, but it was never meant to become the room where someone stays. As understanding grows, so should the depth of what we are willing to explore, allowing a simple introduction to Jesus to become the beginning of a much larger discovery of who He is.
The pressure to keep things simple is understandable. Biblical literacy has declined, many people arrive in church with little knowledge of Scripture, and even longtime Christians can carry significant gaps in their understanding of the larger biblical story. Starting with Melchizedek, the Levitical priesthood, or the finer points of covenant theology may create more confusion than clarity for someone trying to understand Christianity for the first time. But meeting people where they are and leaving people where they are represents two very different approaches to discipleship.
We can begin simply without remaining shallow.
A person may first know Jesus as the One who forgives sin and gives eternal life, then gradually discover the Shepherd who knows His sheep, the Priest who represents them before God, the King whose kingdom has no end, the Lamb who gives Himself in their place, the Word present before creation, the Light entering darkness, the Resurrection standing before a grieving woman, and the eternal “I AM.” None replaces the Jesus they first encountered, but each opens their understanding to more of who He has always been.
This is where biblical literacy becomes less about accumulating information and more about developing the ability to make connections. Abraham begins opening covenant, Moses gives us deliverance, manna gives greater depth to bread, Israel’s shepherds add weight to the Good Shepherd, the sacrificial system prepares us to understand the Lamb of God, and the prophets create expectations fulfilled in ways a reader cannot fully appreciate without knowing what came before. Scripture begins connecting with Scripture, and Jesus becomes increasingly difficult to understand apart from the larger story in which He stands at the center.
Perhaps one consequence of declining biblical literacy, then, is not simply Christians knowing fewer Bible stories. The greater loss may be our diminishing ability to recognize what those stories reveal when they begin connecting around Christ. Without the larger biblical landscape, His claims can slowly flatten into inspirational language detached from the history, promises, prophecy, sacrifice, covenant, judgment, mercy, and redemption giving them their weight. Eventually, we risk worshipping a Jesus only through the parts of Him we already understand.
This possibility becomes especially important when we consider how strongly modern ministry values relevance. We want people to see how Jesus speaks into marriage, parenting, anxiety, loneliness, work, suffering, purpose, relationships, and difficult decisions, and He belongs in every one of those places. But relevance works best when it becomes an entrance rather than a boundary. If Jesus is continually presented primarily through the problems we want Him to solve, people can learn a great deal about how Christianity applies to their lives while learning surprisingly little about the larger biblical story revealing who Christ is.
The Gospel of John continually moves in the other direction. People come to Jesus hungry, frightened, confused, grieving, searching, and uncertain, while He moves beyond their immediate questions toward His identity. He gives bread, but then says He is the Bread of Life. Martha wants her brother back, while Jesus declares Himself the Resurrection and the Life. Thomas wants directions, while Jesus says He is the Way. Jesus meets people where they are without allowing where they are to determine how much of Himself He will reveal.
There is a certain freedom for pastors, ministry heads or small group leaders in this because we do not have to choose between accessibility and depth. Jesus certainly did not. His images were accessible, His invitations were clear, and His compassion continually drew people toward Him, but He also allowed difficult truths to remain difficult. Some people walked away, others misunderstood Him, and even His own disciples sometimes struggled to grasp what He meant. Jesus explained, questioned, illustrated, and patiently taught, but He never reduced Himself simply to fit within what people were already prepared to believe.
Perhaps the goal, then, is not to determine how much Scripture people can handle, but to give them somewhere meaningful to begin and enough confidence to keep going. We can start with bread without stopping at bread, introduce the Shepherd while eventually opening the Scriptures giving the Shepherd greater meaning, and answer the questions people are already asking while allowing God’s Word to lead toward questions they never thought to ask. Accessibility can open the door, while biblical literacy keeps opening what lies beyond it.
Wherever we are in our faith, we need the opportunity to keep discovering how much larger Jesus is than our current understanding of Him.
About the Author
Dan Ellsworth has spent more than 30 years serving as a lay leader in small-group Bible studies, studying Scripture alongside other believers and seeing firsthand both the challenges and possibilities of biblical discipleship. His professional career has included decades in animal health and agriculture, and he remains connected to agriculture as a small cattle producer in eastern Colorado. In recent years, he began putting into writing many of the questions and convictions shaped through decades of studying Scripture with others. His Scripture-centered studies focus on biblical literacy, discipleship, and helping Christians see Jesus more clearly through God’s Word. His books and small-group resources are available at getbacktothebible.com.
