\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
But there\u2019s a better way: big reading leads to big meaning. Because God created our world and always intended to interact with us as significant actors within it, the revelation in the Bible moves along with God\u2019s people. If the Bible wants to enter human history as part of God\u2019s mission to transform that history, then it has no choice but to be story. Because story is where we live. We don\u2019t live in information \u2014 even good, inspiring, encouraging, or wise information. We always and invariably think of our lives as individual stories within some bigger, overall story.<\/p>\n
So the Bible enters the fray of all the competing narratives that are trying to tell us they are the true story of the world. These narratives are actively trying to recruit us every day. Nationalist. Consumerist. Narcissist. Pantheist. There are would-be Master Narratives everywhere. If we don\u2019t read and know the Bible\u2019s story of the world, then we will end up reading the Bible for little snippets of information and bits of spiritual wisdom that we then fit into another controlling narrative that we get from somewhere else.<\/p>\n
This is why the centerpiece of our recovery of the Bible is the recovery of the Bible as story. The piecemeal Bible fails to capture imaginations because it is simply too small. This is certainly part of the reason why fewer people, especially fewer younger people, are engaging with the Bible.<\/p>\n
The upward journey from a minimalist Bible to being immersed in God\u2019s full revelation takes us from bits to full books then all the way to God\u2019s beautiful saga of world transformation. It is precisely as this surprising and redemptive story that the Bible comes into its own to confront, judge, forgive, save, and restore.<\/p>\n
This is the Bible God intends for us. A Bible we know deeply. A Bible filled with people and covenants, with dramatic scenes, rising and falling action, and major movements that all fit into a plot that is taking us somewhere. To know the Bible is to know all these smaller stories that fit into the Story.<\/p>\n
This, then, is our itinerary: as we continually feast on whole books, the Story will emerge with greater and greater clarity. And with clarity comes both understanding and invitation. We will begin to understand what God is doing, and then the Bible\u2019s endgame for us will emerge. We will be invited to join him.<\/p>\n
Learn more about the Institute for Bible Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Find out what our partners at the Institute for Bible Reading are talking about and visit ImmerseBible.com to learn more about the Immerse Bible Reading Experience. Read Part\u00a05 of the 6 part series by Bible Scholar Glenn Paauw. Editors Note: From \u201cNo Bible\u201d to \u201cKnow Bible\u201d is a 6-part series on the path toward great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,15,33,44,45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5908,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions\/5908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}