Tag Archive for: Bible

From “No Bible” to “Know Bible” Part 3: Reading Together

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Editors Note: From “No Bible” to “Know Bible” is a 6-part series on the path toward great Bible engagement. Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2.

What does it mean to receive the Bible on its own terms? Dynamic, living Bible engagement happens when a community:

  • has good access to a well-translated text presented in its natural literary forms,
  • regularly feasts together on whole literary units understood in context,
  • understands the overall story of the Bible as centered in Jesus, and
  • accepts the invitation to take up its own role in God’s ongoing drama of restoration through
    the power of the Spirit.

When the Scriptures are received on their own terms like this they can once again become God’s speech act—instructing, revealing, convicting, judging, comforting, healing, and saving with all their intended power.

Part 3: Reading Together

We read a well-translated Bible, and we read it holistically. We read complete literary units. If at all possible, we read in a nice, clean, elegant Reader’s Bible. They’re built to make reading easier and better, so no surprise there. But wait. Who is reading? We are. We are reading.

Really? We? Yes.

Because, first, the research evidence shows most of us are not really reading the Bible very much. And second, when we do read it, it’s not really “we.” It’s more like me or you. Those who are doing something with the Bible are overwhelmingly doing it alone.

The fact is, we’ve largely privatized our experiences with the Bible. We hold up the “daily quiet time” as the center of what we’re supposed to do with the Bible. We’ve created a Bible culture in which an individual experience is at the heart of what a serious Bible reader does.

Alone with a Bible, I have my private time with God.

Which is fine.

Of course, we’re not against any of this. It’s great to read your Bible alone. Lots of very good things can and do happen.

But not all of the good things that God intended. Two historical points are really important right here. First, when the Scriptures were first experienced by God’s people, they were always experienced in community. There were very few copies, and so a village in ancient Israel or one of the earliest Christian gatherings would at most have a copy of some of the books that now make up the Bible. So these would be read aloud for the community, and people would simply listen.

Of course, they could listen well and remember what they heard, because they lived in an oral culture, not a book culture. And the historical evidence is that these experiences were interactive, not merely one-way communication. Leaders and people were processing the sacred words together.

But secondly, and just as importantly, the original audience knew that the Bible itself was a community formation book, not a private me-and-God book. The word “you” in the Bible is most often a plural word, not a singular. It is addressed to the gathered people of God and is intending to speak to them in their corporate actions and beliefs. As a group they are invited to get caught up in God’s great restoration movement.

We’ve moved away from this ancient, oral, community-based culture in lots of ways. In fact, it is worth noting that the Bible first became widely available to individuals in their own language right at the time that modern individualism was growing as a cultural force. We live and move and have our being in this individualism. It is the air we breathe. Without even thinking about it, we think and act in independent, self-oriented ways.

So for us, recovering a deep, transformative engagement with the Scriptures has to include rediscovering ways of experiencing the Bible together. And this means more than doing Bible study together. We must back up a step and find new ways of simply reading the Bible together, listening to it being read and letting these words wash over us.

Then we must craft new ways of interacting openly and honestly with what we’ve read or heard. We must learn the humility to speak our own views respectfully and well, and then listen closely and seriously to what others have to say.

This communal engagement will look more like a book club than a traditional Bible study.

Finally, we need to think about the communal implications of a passage, not only the personal impact for ourselves in isolation. Our Bible reading must explicitly raise community-based questions. What kind of community will embody this teaching or instruction? How can we become that kind of community?

Bringing community-based engagement back to our Bibles won’t happen unless we are intentional about making it happen. The Institute for Bible Reading has created a whole-church-based Bible reading program called Immerse precisely for this reason.

I don’t see, hear, experience, or know enough to experience the Bible sola me. I am too small a person to read the Bible only by myself. Together, we are the people of God’s new creation and we need each other. Even in our Bible reading, understanding, and, yes, living.

Continue to Part 4: Location, Location, Location

From “No Bible” to “Know Bible” Part 2: Feasting on the Bible

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Editors Note: From “No Bible” to “Know Bible” is a 6-part series on the path toward great Bible engagement. Click here to read Part 1.

What does it mean to receive the Bible on its own terms? Dynamic, living Bible engagement happens when a community:

  • has good access to a well-translated text presented in its natural literary forms,
  • regularly feasts together on whole literary units understood in context,
  • understands the overall story of the Bible as centered in Jesus, and
  • accepts the invitation to take up its own role in God’s ongoing drama of restoration through the power of the Spirit.

When the Scriptures are received on their own terms like this they can once again become God’s speech act—instructing, revealing, convicting, judging, comforting, healing, and saving with all their intended power.

Part 2: Feasting on The Bible

As we explored last week, the first step to deep Bible engagement happens when a community has good access to a well-translated text presented in its natural literary forms. The first half of this statement is now true for a fair part of the world (though the translation need remains for many). The second part of this statement is becoming a reality for more and more people as publishers increasingly realize the immense value in Reader’s Bibles.

Elegant reader’s editions give people the opportunity to regain something that’s been missing from our Bible practices for nearly five centuries: reading the Bible in its natural, uncluttered form. Reader’s Bibles reintroduce us to Bible feasting.

Bible feasting is reading whole books, taking in the literary units that the Bible’s first authors and editors created and intended for their audiences to read as complete works.

Bible feasting is reading the Scriptures as the kind of literature they were inspired to be.

Bible feasting is reading the Bible without distractions and interruptions. It is reading deeply, at length, and with more understanding.

Bible feasting recognizes the natural literary breaks that existed before chapter and verse numbers inartfully imposed their foreign structure on the Bible. The best kind of in-depth Bible reading is not just reading more (though it is that too!) — it’s reading better because we are seeing what the Bible really is.

Bible feasting is reading all those long-overlooked books like Judges, Zephaniah, Philemon, and Habakkuk and discovering the crucial pieces they contribute to the overall biblical narrative. Bible feasting is taking 35 minutes to hear the entire crashing chord of Paul’s anguished plea for suffering, servant leadership in 2 Corinthians. Bible feasting is seeing a whole sequence of parables in a Gospel and asking why they were put together that way. It’s reading all five of those sad songs of devastation and loss in Lamentations, allowing those few words of hope right in the center to hit us with their full force:

Yet I still dare to hope

when I remember this:

The faithful love of the LORD never ends!

His mercies never cease.

Great is his faithfulness;

his mercies begin afresh each morning.

In short, Bible feasting reacquaints us with an undiminished Bible. Eating the Bible whole is essential to receiving the Bible that God actually gave us. Feasting is the thing that gets us back on track to big, deep Bible engagement. If the Bible is going to be our story and form our lives the way it was meant to, then there is no shortcut to simply reading more of it.

So long as we merely snack on the Bible, taking preselected bits and pieces out of their bigger literary settings, we will never know the real Bible nor receive all its intended gifts.

Snacking on Bible verses allows us to set our own agenda, to hear only what we want to hear. Feasting introduces us to the complete message—good encouraging words and good hard words—that we so desperately need.

Snacking on Bible verses allows to set our own agenda, to hear only what we want to hear.Click To Tweet

There is a crisis in Christian identity in the world today. Too many who claim the status of Christ-follower allow this or that ideology to be the primary force that shapes and forms them. Too many Christians are getting the story of their lives from somewhere other than God’s Scriptures. If we are to know who we really are, and the story we are supposed to be living, then we have to re-immerse ourselves in these holy words—songs, stories, letters, and prophecies—that God gave us for a purpose.

There is a complete meal for us in the Bible. Feasting is the only way we’ll ever discover it.

Continue to Part 3: Reading Together

Our Interview with Christianity Today on the Museum of the Bible

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There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the Museum of the Bible, which opens on November 17 in the heart of Washington, DC. The 430,000-square-foot space three blocks south of the Capitol building will be a sight to behold, boasting technological spectacles like a 140-foot overhead LED screen, a performing arts theater with 17 4K resolution projectors, handheld touchscreen “digital docents,” augmented reality games for kids, and more.

The 140-ft LED ceiling displays 5 different scenes (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Christianity Today’s November cover story is on the forthcoming opening of the museum, so they reached out to us and hosted Glenn Paauw on their “Quick to Listen” podcast with assistant editor Morgan Lee and editorial director Ted Olsen. They unpack what it means to have a Museum of the Bible, what it means to engage the Bible, and what role our experiences with the Bible play in our understanding of God’s Word.

Check out Glenn’s interview with CT and let us know what you think.

 

Youth Pastor Helps Students Immerse in the Bible

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Soft-spoken, studious and philosophical, youth pastor Jesse Bolinder understands the importance of the Bible in the spiritual formation of kids and teenagers. So when Jesse approached us this spring (before Immerse: The Reading Bible was complete) and asked if we’d give him pre-published files to begin testing Immerse with his youth group at Harbert Community Church in Sawyer, MI, we knew he was a great fit.

I sat down with Jesse to talk about his work with young people and how he sees the role of Scripture playing out with Generations Y and Z.

Recent data shows 40—50% of Millennials are leaving the church. This includes kids that faithfully attended youth group and went on missions trips. Does that weigh on you and shape the way you do youth ministry?

Definitely. James Emery White in his book Meet Generation Z unpacks what the world might look like to the first generation of young people born into the post-Christian era (1995—2010). For this generation it will be crucial that we get the Bible right—that we stop treating it like a user’s manual or reference book. I’m hesitant to give my students a reference Bible because I want them reading the story, not just looking up verses on what the Bible says about anger.

Immerse represents a new approach to reading Scripture. What caught your attention and attracted you to it?

I’ve really bought into IFBR’s concept of full meals versus Bible nuggets. And the book club model is perfect for young people. We don’t give them enough credit. If we invite them to read the Bible and express their opinions honestly, they’ll respond. We have to stop trying to control the conversations or thinking that honest opinions are dangerous. We’re starting to use IFBR’s book club model for more and more of our conversations.

Can you share a little about the group’s experience?

We only had pre-production scripts, but there were some immediate takeaways. For me personally, I found myself reading more. I’d read for a while, and because there were no chapter breaks inviting me to stop, I kept reading. It was only when I finished that I realized I’d read the equivalent of four or five chapters.

For the young people, the text was less intimidating. And reading whole books was a new experience. When we finished reading Mark, one of the girls said, “Is this actually the Bible?”

In addition to our group experience, I had a serendipitous experience with my nephew who’s a junior in high school. Our families were on vacation together and he saw me reading a book about the Bible. I was just finishing the book and offered it to him. But he said he’d actually never read the Bible himself and thought maybe he should read it first. By this time I had a published copy of Immerse: Beginnings and asked if he’d like to read it. That began a summer-long conversation. At one point he said to me, “Sometimes God seems to be the antagonist in the story. The people are building these cities but God steps in and messes things up.”

On another occasion, he expressed annoyance that the story of the construction of the tabernacle was repeated four times! Later he softened and remarked that it must have been very important. Here’s this junior in high school, seriously reading the Old Testament and going from annoyance to insight.

Anything else you want to add?

It’s sobering that 85% of young people today believe the church is hypocritical (I think I got that from the book UnChristian). I don’t blame them for this. This is more on us—your generation and mine. We’ve put stumbling blocks in front of them. This is why I’m a fan of Immerse—reading the bigger story and the more authentic conversations. The Bible isn’t Google! We’re definitely using Immerse more.

 

Media Favorites 2017

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Over the course of the year, IFBR staff have had the opportunity to be featured in a number of different media outlets. So we gathered together a few interviews and articles from 2017 (so far) that we feel best reflect our mission, philosophy, and vision for the Bible Reading Movement.

If you’d like to set up an interview or have us write for you, contact us to set something up.

ChurchLeaders.com Podcast

Glenn Paauw and Paul Caminiti joined Jason Daye at ChurchLeaders.com to talk about the current epidemic of Biblical illiteracy, and how tracing the problems back to their roots 500 years ago can help us create solutions for our churches today.

Interview with the Bible Buying Guide

Randy Brown at the Bible Buying Guide published a comprehensive interview with Glenn Paauw in which they discuss the Institute for Bible Reading and our work to pioneer a Bible Reading Movement. They talk at length about the importance of form and design in our Bibles, and how Immerse reflects many of the changes that are necessary for a great Bible reading experience. If you you want an in-depth look at IFBR and our work, this 4000+ word interview is a great resource.

Backstage at Q Nashville

Paul Caminiti was interviewed during this year’s Q conference in Nashville. He shares IFBR’s story and talks about how we’re working for a better future for the Bible.

Q Backstage: Paul Caminiti

Premier Christianity Magazine Article

Glenn Paauw wrote an article for UK magazine Premier Christianity about how snacking on “Scripture McNuggets” is a misuse of the Bible. He then lays out a series of steps we can take to receive the Bible on its own terms and recover deep Bible engagement.