Category: Bible Usage

Glenn Paauw, Institute for Bible Reading

Many adults are struggling to read the Bible. We know this. At some level it’s understandable because the Bible is a big, complicated, and very ancient book. Yet the Bible is where Christianity gets its story, so the faith community needs to be deeply committed to knowing it well regardless of the challenges.

If adults are struggling, what should we expect from kids? If the Bible is tough going for the grownups, it’s going to be even tougher for young readers, right?

In a word . . . yes. But maybe it’s time to look at how we’ve been trying to introduce kids to the Bible. What, exactly, has been our goal? What’s the right expectation for kids reading, knowing, and understanding the Bible? And what would the path to solid Bible fluency look like for kids?

Where We’ve Been

Simply from looking at our standard Bible curricula, it would seem that what’s actually happening is that we have other goals besides fluency (spiritual formation, teaching morals, building faith, etc.) that cause us to use the Bible in certain ways. The intended purpose is not often to foster a deep engagement with Scripture itself. As a result, within any given lesson the Bible is encountered merely as either a theme verse or two, or a safely paraphrased version of a “Bible story.”

Perhaps this approach is seen as a good and necessary adaptation of the Bible for readers who are young and not yet proficient. That makes sense, right? Well. . .

The problem with giving children only a verse or two is that this approach tends to stick around as readers get older. Even into adulthood we continue to show and teach the Scriptures by referring to select Bible verses. The consequence of this is that many people persist in thinking the Bible is in fact a collection of these verses (and if they are honest, admitting that some verses are better than others).

And the problem with an ongoing diet of paraphrased Bible stories is that such narrations are not actually the Bible. They are typically told with any age-inappropriate elements toned down or taken out. And of course, any paraphrase represents someone’s interpretation of the essence of a particular story.

All of this is appropriate in a sense, but there’s also a danger here. Many of these “safe” versions of the stories are never replaced with the actual biblical texts as kids turn into teenagers and then young adults. This means that young readers often wind up not learning the way biblical language actually sounds and actually works. And older kids never learn to engage with the stronger, stranger, more complex versions of these stories that the Bible actually tells.

When do we get around to teaching young adults how to handle the real Bible?

Furthermore, these collections of paraphrased stories are often treated as stand-alone lessons, so kids don’t ever learn how the stories are connected and how they build on each other to tell the bigger biblical narrative. And rarely are different kinds of literary writings acknowledged. A curriculum constructed of “Bible stories” will naturally have difficulty incorporating letters, songs, wisdom sayings, and other literary varieties in Scripture.

So are we discipling kids into not being Bible readers?

What would the average child take away from their long-term experience with the Bible in our current teaching approach? Have they taken the first steps toward receiving the Bible on its own terms? Or have they been taught to use the Bible in simplistic and misleading ways?

I’m reminded of a conversation we had with a prominent publisher of children’s Sunday School resources and Bible curricula. After reviewing their programs and comparing them with our perspective on Bible engagement, one of their executives, deep in thought, looked up and said, “So you’re telling me that if our programs are successful, we are actually producing generations of non–Bible readers.”

Are kids growing up learning that the Bible is a book to be read? Do kids have any inkling of the big story? Are they falling in love with Jesus—that is, with Jesus as understood in the context of the overall narrative?

What To Do?

At the Institute for Bible Reading, we’re working on answers to these reading problems. As young people within the church grow up, graduate, and head out on their own in various ways, a healthy and hearty appetite for Bible reading doesn’t seem to be going with them. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that there is a low number of adults in the church who are engaged in Bible reading and comprehension. People are following the path that’s been laid out for them, and then we scramble to convert adults into Bible readers. We are failing to show them the way in the first place.

So what would change look like?

The downward trajectory of Bible engagement in the church needs to be reversed if we are to fully receive the profound gift that we have in God’s Word. A Bibleless Christianity won’t be a vibrant and affective Christianity.

Let’s chart a course for a new future for kids and the Bible, so that kids know the Bible the right way at the right age and stage, and appropriately grow into the Bible. We want kids who not only love the Bible but also learn how to read it intelligently and well, so they don’t turn away from it the first time they encounter its opponents.

Read more about Bible engagement from the Institute for Bible Reading

Learn more about Immerse: The Bible Reading Experience

Hear what happens when a group of high school students read the New Testament

“Our students have heard a lot of words about the words of the Bible. When it comes to actually reading or hearing the words of Scripture themselves, they find it more interesting than the words about the words of Scripture that they have been hearing their whole lives,” Matt Laidlaw, Dean of Students, Calvin Christian High School.

Hear what happens when the sophomore New Testament class at Calvin Christian High School is immersed in the life-transforming Word of God—not simply being told about the Bible but reading the Bible without distractions.

Learn more about Immerse: The Bible Reading Experience

Throughout the Beyond Suffering Bible Joni Eareckson Tada shares personal insights on how God can use anything, even suffering, to bring us closer to him and display his glory. When our lives don’t go the way we want, when the suffering and pain seem too much to bear we have a choice, we can either rely on God or let bitterness consume us. Read what Joni has to say about a time when God brought her face-to-face with her own tendency to hold on to bitterness.

By Joni Eareckson Tada

Troubles. Hardships. Calamities. Ever heard that old adage, “Bad things come in threes”? It’s only folk wisdom, but somehow it seems true.

Bitterness was a temptation for me in the early days of my paralysis. Deep inside I knew it was wrong, but I justified myself by saying, “Surely God won’t mind if I let off a little steam now and then. After all, I am paralyzed!” But as many of us have learned, indulging in bitterness leads us down a path to even more despair and bitterness.

As if that trouble wasn’t enough, God added a second hardship. Several months into my hospital stay, I had an operation on my lower spine. After the surgery, I was forced to life face down for fifteen days while the stiches healed. “I am sick and tired of this,” I complained out loud.

Then, the third distress came: I caught the flu. Suddenly, not being able to move was peanuts compared to not being able to breathe. I was miserable! But as I thought about it, I understood what God was doing. No longer was my bitterness a tiny trickle; it was a raging torrent that could not be ignored. It was as if God was holding my anger up before my face and saying lovingly but firmly, “Stop turning your head and looking the other way. This bitterness has got to go. What are you going to do about it?”

The pressure had gotten so strong that I was either going to give the situation over to him completely or allow myself to wallow in bitterness. Faced with that ultimatum, I was able to clearly see what a wicked course bitterness would be. Sometimes troubles, hardships, and distresses—in groups of three (or more!)—back us into a corner and force us to seriously consider the lordship of Christ.

Lord, when troubles pile on, may I look to you for help and hope.

Looks Inside the Beyond Suffering Bible

WAY-FM’s World’s Biggest Small Group recently did a study on where God is in suffering. They used the Beyond Suffering Bible to explore how to connect the goodness of God with the pain and suffering we see in this world.

Having been a quadriplegic for fifty years after a tragic diving accident, suffering from chronic pain, and battling breast cancer, Joni understands the why question. But it wasn’t until she stopped asking why with a clenched fist and started asking why with a searching heart that she found hope.

In this study she shares the 10 words that changed her life and motivated her to bring God’s infinite hope to a hurting world. Hear her share her heart.

Learn more about the Beyond Suffering Bible study on WAY Nation

Look inside the Beyond Suffering Bible

by Glenn Paauw, Institute for Bible Reading

Reading the Bible well doesn’t happen automatically. There are steps we must take to ensure we’re receiving the Bible on its own terms.

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.

Why?

Because, first, research shows that most of us are not really reading the Bible very much. And second, when we do read it, it’s not really we who are reading. It’s more like me or you. In other words, 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 culture in which an individual Bible 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, none of this is a problem as far as it goes. It’s great to read your Bible alone. Lots of very good things can and do happen.

But not all the good things that God intended. Two historical points are really important here. First, when the Scriptures were first experienced by God’s people, they were always experienced in community. There were very few copies, 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. As such, these Bible portions would be read aloud for the community, and people would simply listen.

Now, they could listen well and remember what they heard because they lived in an oral culture, a far cry from our context, in which written materials are so readily available. The historical evidence also shows that these listening experiences were interactive, not merely one-way communication. Everyone (including the leaders) was processing the sacred words together.

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 singular. God’s Word is addressed to the gathered people of God and is intended to speak to them in their corporate beliefs and actions. As a group, they were being 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 same 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 a 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 the 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 just the personal impact for ourselves as isolated individuals. 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 Bible reading 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.

We don’t see, hear, experience, or know enough to experience the Bible sola me. We are too small to try to read this grand story only by ourselves. Together, we are the people of God’s new creation, and we need each other—even in our Bible reading, understanding, and, yes, living.

Learn more about Immerse: The Bible Reading Experience

Read more from Glenn on how to receive the Bible on its own terms.

Devotional from the Life Recovery Bible

Read Proverbs 3:13-26

None of us set out to become addicted to something. We were seeking something else—escape from pain, perhaps, or something to make up for our losses and brokenness—or maybe we had a subconscious desire for self-destruction.

Unfortunately, the things we turned to could not satisfy our deepest
needs or desires. Our needs are legitimate. What must be changed is the tendency to go the wrong way to try to meet those needs. The Bible says, “My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang on to them, for they will refresh your soul. They are like jewels on a necklace. They keep you safe on your way, and your feet will not stumble” (Proverbs 3:21-23).

Godly wisdom leads to great benefits in life. As we seek wisdom, we will find the other things we desire. “Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding. For wisdom is more profitable than silver, and her wages are better than gold. Wisdom is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. She offers you long life in her right hand, and riches and honor in her left. She will guide you down delightful paths; all her ways are satisfying” (Proverbs 3:13-17).

As we change our focus and begin to seek after wisdom, we will find our lives more fulfilled and secure. Godly wisdom will also help us avoid the destructive paths we have previously taken as we tried to fulfill our unmet needs and desires.

Learn More about the Life Recovery Bible

Zephaniah might be a book that is often overlooked but the prophet brings an important message about pure worship. Read more from the Dancing in the Desert Devotional Bible 

Only decades before Jerusalem’s fall and one generation before
Jeremiah, Zephaniah warned of judgment. On the surface, he was an
unlikely source for such severe words. He was a descendant of one good
king (Hezekiah) prophesying during the reign of another (Josiah). Josiah
was early in the process of tearing down unholy altars and revitalizing the
nation’s worship. Things seemed to be moving in the right direction. What could be so bad that God would overthrow his people?

But Judah’s idolatry was too deeply entrenched to be reversed by Josiah’s reforms, though God would promise to withhold judgment until after the
good king’s death (2 Chronicles 34:28). So Zephaniah predicts the worst: “a day of terrible distress and anguish, a day of ruin and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness” (Zephaniah 1:15). At times, his words seem broader than for just Judah and point to a greater, later judgment. But they are painfully urgent for his hearers. These spiritually complacent people are sabotaging their own destiny and are apparently desensitized to God’s voice. Zephaniah’s words are meant to jolt them out of their apathy. They need to know they will begin to experience God’s painful discipline in less than a generation.

Zephaniah’s prophecy doesn’t end in despair, of course. A restoration is coming, and God will delight in his people and rejoice over them with songs
(3:17). Again, Zephaniah’s words seem broader than for his nation alone. God’s restoration will have global consequences—the purification of all people for unified worship. Entire nations will come to worship him (3:9). Israel will be the centerpiece of a much bigger salvation than its people have expected.

That’s the goal of God’s plan. This ongoing battle throughout Scripture
and history is about one primary issue: worship. Idolatry, along with all its
symptoms, derails our ultimate purpose. Pure worship fulfills it. And God
will do everything necessary to bring the hearts of multitudes into alignment with his own.

Take a look inside the Dancing in the DesertDevotional Bible

By Kevin O’Brien, Brand Manager

The world goes by at a million miles per hour, and it seems to get faster and become more complicated at every turn. It’s quite easy to get distracted, disgruntled, and even disillusioned. We chase so hard after the things we think we are supposed to pursue—success, respect, love, money, etc. We adopt the causes we are supposed to adopt, get outraged over the latest injustice that we are supposed to be outraged about. And next week it all changes.

Somewhere along the way, as the routines and cares of the world have distracted us, we have forgotten the reality of our faith. In all the busyness of life, our faith threatens to float away like dandelion seeds in the wind. We need a firm foundation.

We need to get back to basics.

The Christian Basics Bible reminds us what our faith is all about in the first place.

Becoming a Christian is not about deciding to live better, trying to be more holy, going to church, or following certain religious practices or behaviors. It is about beginning a personal relationship with God. Religious rules and duties will always end up tying us up, as Jesus often reminded the highly religious Pharisees of his day. Jesus came not to tie us up but to set us free (see, e.g., John 8:31-32; Galatians 5:1). He came with good news (the meaning of the word “gospel”); and this good news is that ordinary people—even people who feel unworthy or have failed or have done bad things—can know God personally and live in harmony with him. (p. A11)

That’s a pretty “back to basics” truth right there. It’s also unbelievably freeing if we take the time to actually read it, digest it, and be changed by it. But the busyness of life, even the trappings of our faith, can rob us of this truth.

So how can we make a practice of getting back to basics, of being a “basic believer”? There are a lot of good answers to that question, but here’s a starting point, a first step if you will. In the book of 2 Timothy, the apostle Paul wrote to his young apprentice Timothy. Timothy was leading a church in the city of Ephesus. Ephesus was rich, influential, and cosmopolitan. It was a center of religion and commerce and the most important city in the Roman province of Asia. It was the place to be. In fact, minus the technology, it probably had a lot of similarities to the type of crazy environment we find ourselves in today. Unfortunately, the church in Ephesus had all kinds of problems. Here’s what Paul tells Timothy:

“Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching. For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.” (2 Timothy 4:2-5, NLT)

Here’s what the Christian Basics Bible says about this passage:

A lack of studying Scripture had led the Ephesian church to be led astray by every new idea that came along. So Paul urges Timothy to keep studying Scripture so he can use it to correct error and explain the truth (4:2-5). We need this book because it is not like any other book, secular or sacred. It is “inspired by God” (3:16). That is, God’s Spirit directed the thoughts of its writers so that what they wrote was exactly what God wanted written. The Bible is therefore God’s revelation to us—revealing his nature, heart, and purposes—and his invitation to join in his story. (p. 1387)

Maybe you’re not in a pastoral role like Timothy—and maybe you never will be—but the advice still stands. The only way Timothy could teach others was to be captured by the truth himself, to really know it. Getting back to the basics of our faith and of our relationship with God starts with getting back into his Word.

I want to be a basic believer. How about you?

Take a Look

Inside the Christian Basics Bible

by Alex Goodwin

Reading the Bible more is one of the most common resolutions for Christians heading into 2019. But statistics show that 80% of new year’s resolutions fail by mid-February.

Maybe this has been your experience. You find a new reading plan, you try harder. But by springtime, that same feeling of guilt and failure is back.

Have questions about Immerse? 

We’ve got answers

Taken from the New Believer’s Bible

“Then those who feared the Lord spoke with each other, and the Lord listened to what they said. In his presence, a scroll of remembrance was written to record the names of those who feared him and always thought about the honor of his name.” Malachi 3:16, NLT

Some people assume that holy and sacred things only take place within the walls of the church, yet this verse says that every time you talk about the Lord with believers God is paying close attention. In fact, the phrase Malachi uses here means “to bend down so as not to miss a word.”

What an incredible thought! God deeply desires that we spend time discussing him, his attributes, and what he is doing in our lives with other believers. That gives us one more reason to make friends with other believers and take part in Bibles studies and church activities.

The next time you get together with your Christian friends, don’t just make small talk. Make the Lord, a central part of your conversation. He is listening.

Take a look inside the New Believer’s Bible