Changing ways to read the Bible

In churches around the world, Christians will affirm that ‘the Bible is the word of God’. But what do they mean by this? Whether they realise it or not, they are making a claim about a genre - a certain class of literature that is special and ‘inspired’. But this claim has been a stumbling block for Christians and onlookers alike. Do we really claim that all 66 books are literally true? And what does ‘true’ even mean?

This is the huge topic that we asked Mark Strom to address for us. It really is one of the ‘so what’ questions for our day and age. Mark is uniquely qualified to give us some wisdom on this because, among things, he wrote a significant book on how to read the Bible called ‘The Symphony of Scripture’. (Still readily available and if you have not got a copy - buy it). So at first we just expected him to give us a summary of the book. But he went further.

He decided to give us a story of how his relationship with the Bible - the way he interpreted what ‘scripture’ meant - developed over the years. He gives us nine different perspectives he went through. They are not ‘right or wrong’ but rather growing perspectives on the Bible, his experience of reading it, and how we should respond to it. Marvellous stuff and very very thought provoking. More than that - very wise and we can benefit from Mark’s long, and at times, torturous experience.

He used slides in the talk - if you watch on youTube you will see them spliced into the talk. If not, here they are to download.