Thursday, April 4, 2013

"The Love of Bible Study" Site

I opened a new website this week called "The Love of Bible Study," linked here. The essays on this site describe the seasons when I perused my old Bible—-purchased for a college course in 1977—in conjunction with a new NRSV Bible that I purchased to replace (but more usually to supplement) my old copy. Reviewing my old marginal notes, reliving "a ha" moments, and rediscovering favorite passages became a lovely time of midlife spiritual renewal.

Those days of reading and renewal became a (still ongoing) blog called “Changing Bibles.” Then it developed into a book project. But as I shopped the manuscript around, I realized (what I knew but still wanted to take the chance) that the project didn't fit comfortably into a genre—academic study, curriculum, or memoir. It was also unsuitable for an evangelical publisher (since I affirm biblical inspiration but not inerrancy), so I didn't approach those. I decided to “cut to the chase” by making my studies available to readers in this online form.

Like other pastors and Christian writers, I love to read and interpret the Bible. My own work these past few years has been writing church curriculum aimed at helping people understand the Bible, apply it to personal life, and interpret the text concerning modern social issues.  Of course, for an even longer time, I’ve read the Bible in order to grow in my faith, to clarify God’s will and purposes. For me, reading the Bible is a great joy!

As we study the Bible, we seek not only to understand things about the Lord but also to seek the Lord himself.  It can be easy for us to forget that the living Christ is right now helping us as we read and study. Thus my blog title has a double sense: we grow in enjoyment of Bible study so that we look forward to it, but we also grow in love of God and one another. We connect Bible passages to Christ, and as we do so we see how the living Christ and the Holy Spirit is present to us today, helping us learn and grow and draw closer to the triune Lord who has already accomplished more than we could think or ask (Eph. 3:20-21).

My prayer is that readers of my site will remember or rediscover favorite scriptural passages of their own, and will gain a fresh appreciation of how enjoyable Bible study is.


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