First Things

Hi, welcome to our podcast,
First Presbyterian Church, as we kick off reading through the
Bible together in 90 days.
We are glad that you joined us.
Hope that this will be helpful.
This is an experiment for us.
Thanks to Michael for setting it up.
As we begin today,
we want to point out some other things that we’re doing in addition
to the podcast that might be helpful.
There will be several adult Sunday school discussions,
recharge discussions.
Men and women’s Bible study may do this,
as well as a high school discussion over at the high school.
Check our website for all of that.
Michael will have all the resources.
We’ll have some links.
We’ll have all of the stuff that we’re doing available,
as well as the reading schedule.
So we’re glad that you can join us in all of these different ways.
Yeah, I would add that when you go to that website,
you’re actually going to have links
that you could download a few digital Bibles.
And we tried to find one that worked both well for Apple phones and for Android phones.
If you don’t have a digital Bible and that would make your reading easier,
feel free to check that out.
And I would also point out that both of those Bibles linked actually have the audio book built into it.
And so we’re going to have a little bit of FAQ on the website on how to download that
and how to get the audio Bible.
But if that would be easier,
I want to just make it clear that that is available to people.
And if you prefer pages and books,
come in and talk to us.
We have kids Bibles.
We have adult Bibles.
We’ll help you get set up if you don’t have something that will work.
And I think that’s important to note because we haven’t talked about that a lot.
We do actually have a children’s reading guide for this project, as well.
That is on the website.
And it does,
we’ll talk about that in just a little bit,
but that does work off of Bibles
that we give to students in our Sunday school program.
So if your family doesn’t have that,
let us know.
And we have extra copies that we can get into people’s hands with the hope that we can have
some young kids doing this with us.
Yeah, one of our hopes is this will be something that families can do together and a good opportunity for families, couples,
people who can do this together in discussion groups.
Thinking about this project,
Clint, what are sort of your overall thoughts of the purpose
of it and what the aim is?
I think it gives us an opportunity to do something together.
It gives us an opportunity to all be literally on the same page, so to speak,
as well as for those who aren’t as disciplined or maybe as active in reading scripture as they’d like
to be or think they should be,
this is a good chance to address that.
And we’re trying to start in a way that’s pretty accessible.
We’re trying to make it easy as possible to follow along.
We’re trying to provide some help through what might be difficult verses and chapters
so that we don’t get lost.
And I think the idea that lots of your church families doing this together could provide
some incentive for people.
Right.
The reading plan is really broken down about three chapters a day,
right?
And the idea is that you read through those three chapters less with an eye towards scholarly study.
I don’t think our thought is that you’re going to dig into individual words or maybe something
will jump out at you.
But the idea is more that you read this as you might read a novel with the idea of reading
sort of consecutively and trying to get the overall feel of what you’re reading.
Is that fair?
I think that’s fair.
Yeah, I would suggest that the reading be done in a way that allows you to try and hear
the text the best you can.
Obviously, if you could create some quiet time and some space where you had the time
to engage the text,
I think it’s important not to think of this necessarily as study.
I think if you’re doing this together with people or on your own,
prayer before you enter
the scripture is always helpful.
But I think especially what you’re doing is reading the text,
hoping that something would
jump out at you.
Something would capture your attention.
Something would speak to you in a way that might be personal and that God might approach
you through these individual texts.
And you’ve said this before,
and I think this is actually really important.
This is a no cost kind of activity,
right?
Most every Presbyterian has a Bible already at home.
So if there was absolutely anything that you’re going to sort of acquire for this project,
it might be some blank paper,
a notebook or even just a notepad.
Because as you’re reading,
we’ve been doing this a little bit ahead of time trying to
get ahead of the curve.
And what I found is there are some words and themes that have been jumping out to me that
I’ve not seen in the past.
And jotting those down has been really helpful for me just to sort of keep track of that
as it goes.
And I wonder what it’s going to look like as we go into different books if those things
maybe even converse with each other a little bit.
So I would recommend maybe you want to have that with your Bible.
Yeah, I would say two things.
No, I’m a person that writes in my Bible.
Some people aren’t comfortable with that,
but I read my Bible with a pen and a highlighter.
I make marks.
I underline.
I circle words.
I’m not too worried about the pages themselves,
more so what’s on them and what’s in them.
And so if that’s comfortable,
fine.
If you’re a person that’s less comfortable marking up a Bible,
then by all means,
grab a notebook and follow along.
And the second thing I would say that I’ve found helpful advice through the years is
to go with what intrigues you.
If something gets your attention,
explore for a moment.
Don’t be afraid to stop and think.
Put your thumb in the Bible.
Put a bookmark in the Bible.
Go back to those verses that capture your attention.
Don’t get so caught up on getting all three chapters read.
If you read one chapter and it means something to you and captures your spirit for a day,
that’s better than pressing on and getting three chapters that you don’t get anything out of.
Right.
And so towards that point,
I think a few things are worth saying.
And not to make this sound like it’s a commercial for the website,
but these things are available
and you should know it.
The first is that Pastor Clint has put together a list of places on the Internet that you
might want to go if you do want to do a little research.
There are some really great websites where you can look at some of the words and what
they mean and where they came from.
And there’s some places where you can look at different translations next to each other.
They’re free.
They’re super easy.
And so that’s available on the website if you do find yourself looking in depth at one chapter.
Another thing to be aware of is the fact that actually Pastor Clint has put together a very broad sketch.
Maybe you wouldn’t call this sketch,
but it’s a very broad overview of all of the books
with just some incredibly 50,000 foot view perspectives on things you might want to know
when reading it.
That’s available as well.
So if you want to print that off and you want to just slide that in to your Bible and you
get to a new book and you want to glance at that,
that’s also available as well.
Yeah, I think it’s a very rough summary of some thoughts on the author,
the dating,
and more importantly, some of the signature themes,
who the book might have been intended for
and the kind of things that are in it that might be unique to that particular author.
So I think the summary of this is you can go as deep here as you have time for and that’s
probably not a 90 day thing.
That’s probably a day by day thing.
If you have one day where the best you can do is to get through three chapters and you
feel like that’s what you’ve got time for, that’s great.
And if you’ve got time to go slow and you have time to really dig into something and
to really have a devotional moment with the text,
that’s even all the better.
Yeah,
absolutely, Michael.
You know,
the New Testament like the Bible as a whole is a remarkable piece of literature.
It is comprised of works from different authors for different reasons,
slightly different time periods in the New Testament,
not as expanded as the Old Testament,
but still different times, different regions,
different people,
different problems,
different intentions.
And to have all of that woven together in this reading plan,
I think will give people
a great opportunity to encounter a remarkable breadth of thought and of teaching and of
learning that we take for granted in the New Testament, really.
And it’s worth saying we did give thought to how to organize the reading schedule, because
you could have done that in a lot of ways.
You could have done a few selections of Gospels,
a few selections of pastoral letters,
and there’s pros and cons both ways.
But as I remember the conversation at least,
we did think living in one book for the amount
of time that we’re there,
Matthew, that we’re there for just over a week.
And that time with one book,
I think, is going to be really valuable,
because especially as we turn our attention towards the Gospels as we start,
it really gives all of us an
opportunity to take a sustained look at the stories of Jesus,
the witness to who Jesus
was.
Because if we pay attention to it,
I guarantee you we’re all going to find something that surprises us.
Yeah, and we,
a couple thousand years later,
may underestimate the thought and the intentionality
that went into the order of the New Testament.
And so, taking it as our ancestors in the faith saw fit to organize it,
I think, is a good way to encounter the material.
I do think it’s helpful not to get behind.
Three chapters in general won’t be a tremendous amount of reading,
but if you put that off
for a few days,
it’s going to be hard to catch up.
Maybe one thing I’d like to offer to you,
if you’re listening to this,
well done, that means you found it.
But it is worth saying we’ve given some thought to the purpose of this thing,
because we are offering multiple discussion groups across the congregation,
like Pastor Clint mentioned.
We also have a Facebook group where we’re welcoming people to come and to give thoughts
and comments as you’re going through the text,
and both Pastor Clint and I will both be engaging in that place.
So the purpose of this podcast and the purpose of this conversation is really to sit down
with two people having a discussion about things that jumped out to us,
and maybe be able to offer some context and be able to offer a small glimpse,
sort of behind the
door of what a conversation in the office between us looks like,
and trying to take
the text seriously, and also just trying to engage in discussion about what that means.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think the idea here is that you get to listen in to two people who have had the opportunity
to have a little background in some of the material,
and to hopefully hear us engage
with the material and what it might say to us,
and in the hopes that possibly that also
speaks to you, but more so so that you understand what you’re looking for and what you might
be encountering in your own reading journey.
Exactly, and it’s worth noting that we are going to be ahead.
So what we publish on Saturday is going to be content that is in preparation for the
week to come.
So Saturday’s podcast is going to have content for the things that we start reading the next day on Sunday,
and once again, the whole purpose of that has the idea of trying to maybe plant
a few ideas and just give a little bit of heads up on what might be coming and what
might to pay attention to as you dig in for the next week.
Yeah, I think the hope is we might provide some roadmap,
some highlights, or some markers of what you’re going to read in the coming week,
and some things that might be helpful
to know as you do so.
Well, with that said,
I think there are a few things to talk about with kids and families.
That’s okay?
Yeah, absolutely.
It is worth noting that on the website there is a link to the children’s reading schedule,
and what’s worth noting there is the schedule that’s online is a schedule that was built
for reading a scripture passage or reading a story from the scripture daily with your
child, and that’s about 90 readings as it worked out in the children’s Bible.
So that means, though, that that includes readings from both the Old Testament and the
New Testament if you were going to read all 90 days.
We would point out that there’s about 45 stories from the New Testament in the children’s Bible.
So if you want to live in the New Testament with your children,
then that would just look
like reading a story about every other day.
But if you wanted to read daily,
like at bedtime or maybe at a mealtime or something like that,
we do have a reading schedule that follows the 90-day plan like the adults.
Yeah, and the benefit of the children’s Bible,
especially if your kids are young,
is that it is essentially redacted material.
It’s edited.
It’s not inappropriate.
It’s not material that’s going to have some of the rougher edges of the Old Testament
in it.
So you could easily do that without worrying that you’re going to have to answer questions
you don’t know how to answer.
Yeah, and truth be told,
the stories about Daniel and David and some of the greats of
the Old Testament have for a long time historically and theologically been talked about as Christians
as pointing to Christ.
So even though we’re not doing the Old Testament as adults,
there’s actually some really neat
resonances in maybe doing that with your kids.
Finally, and the last comment that we have for children is in third grade,
we do give children’s Bibles to our students,
and those Bibles are the readers’ NIV versions.
And we’re about to talk about translations here,
but that is the full Bible.
That’s all of the content of the New Testament.
So if you have a student in those middling grades and you want to read with them out of their Bible,
just know that that is the whole thing,
that everything is included in
there and that if you wanted to stay with the schedule would be the exact same schedule
as the adult Bible.
Right.
So the Bible for little children is a collection of stories and it will tell you where to find
the stories, but they won’t be in order in regard to the New Testament.
The kids Bible or the children’s and youth Bible that we have is the full chapter verse.
Everything will match, but it is an edited version with a more readable content that
is designed for younger readers.
It will be the same content,
but it will be different words.
So towards that point,
Clint, I think this is a question I imagine I would have if I
was thinking about this process.
I think I would be wondering which Bible should I use?
And I would know that in church we read the NIV most often,
but I’ve probably heard of
the King James Version or the NRSV or maybe the message or some.
I’ve heard these things maybe.
So what guidance would you give us on that?
I think it’s helpful to remember that there are two basic groups of Bibles.
The first is called a translation and what translation means is that someone has worked
from the language the Bible was written in.
So, predominantly Hebrew in the Old Testament,
predominantly Greek in the New Testament,
those are projects done generally by groups of scholars.
They work with the language.
They dig into the language.
They try to find the closest English words.
They try to make the sentences and the syntax work and they give us a translation.
The other group of Bibles is called paraphrase and a paraphrase starts from an English version
and tries to make it more readable.
So the paraphrase you’d be most familiar with is probably the Living Bible,
but that is not the same as a translation.
If you lay a translation like the NIV and a Living Bible next to one another,
they will read very differently because one is trying to stay true to the original language and
one is trying to be as readable as possible.
I would suggest that if you’re not really familiar with the Scripture,
you look for a translation rather than a paraphrase.
It’s going to give you a better sense of the actual text.
It’s going to keep you closer to the actual readings,
the words themselves.
It may be a little rougher in spots,
but I think you’d be better off for it having gone with the translation.
Among the translations,
there are lots of choices as well.
I like the NIV,
the New International Version,
and I like the NRSV,
the New Revised Standard
Version, which is the preferred translation of the Presbyterian Church and both I find pretty readable.
In my experience,
lots of Presbyterian churches use the NRSV and I have actually been in some
where they’ve used the ESV,
which is also fine.
I would quite frankly be less worried about translation and I just mean that because if
it is any one of these translations,
you are getting a really pretty good account and where
there are disputes and arguments and textual criticisms and all those kinds of things.
They’re really mostly immaterial to the kind of reading that we’re encouraging in the midst
of this project.
I would maybe recommend,
and I’d be interested in your thoughts on this,
Clint, if you have a New King James Version or a King James Version,
there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
But if that’s sort of the Bible that you grew up with,
maybe that’s a confirmation Bible
or maybe that’s just what you’ve generally read,
it might be a really fun experience
to read outside of that for this experiment.
Pick up an NIV and see how it reads differently because you might see scripture in a new way.
I think the benefit and the strength of the King James is also the weakness.
It’s different language.
It’s poetic, it’s old English,
it’s hard to read,
it’s harder to understand.
And I would say unless you just appreciate that or enjoy that,
you would benefit from
a modern English translation.
You’re going to be happy with an NIV or an NRSV.
I will also say that in regard to those two,
probably the primary choice is the ESV being another good one.
You’re going to find in the NRSV that it’s less strict in its translation than the NIV.
So here’s what I mean.
In the NIV, if the Greek says “brothers” or “men,” it leaves those words in even
if it thinks it doesn’t mean just male people.
The NRSV reads that and says,
“We’re pretty sure this doesn’t mean men,
so they will insert a word like ‘human’ or ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters.'”
And they do that to try and catch the meaning and the spirit of the text rather than the literal words.
The New International Version is much more likely to stick with the actual words even
if it means compromising that general spirit of the text.
So it’s not that either is better or worse,
it’s just that they have to make a decision.
What does it say versus what it means?
The NRSV tends to go with what they think it means.
The NIV tends to go with what it says,
and I think that’s a significant difference.
One of the major differences between,
say, an NRSV and an NIV in what are called study
Bibles, and understand that study Bibles don’t change the text,
it’s about the material
that they add, the extra readings, the devotional readings,
the explanations of words,
the introductions to the book.
If you are interested in sort of the traditional established scholarship,
the NIV is going
to give that to you.
If you’re interested in the more cutting edge,
the more current opinion,
I think the NRSV
is going to give that to you.
So the NIV is always going to side with if it’s a person’s name on the book,
they’re going to be generally favorable to the idea that that person actually wrote the book.
The NRSV, if that’s challenged in academia,
they’re going to report that to you.
It doesn’t change the translation itself,
but it does have a bearing on some of those
extra materials that you might read.
It’s not a better or worse,
it’s just one leans more academic than the other,
and you might want to know that.
So let’s say that you either download the book overview or you do buy a study Bible
and you want to invest an extra 10 minutes at the beginning of a book to sort of get a summary.
What would you recommend,
would you say,
what are things to really try to know before starting
a new book in the New Testament?
What would be helpful for that reading,
do you think?
Yeah, I think for the average reader,
the arguments over dating and the arguments over
the date the book was written and who actually did or didn’t write it,
I don’t think you’re
going to find those particularly helpful.
I think what is helpful would be the major themes,
and if the introduction gives you
a sense of what this author is trying to capture and you take that into the book with you,
I think you’re going to be better able to spot it when you see it.
And each author sort of has their pet themes and their most important things,
and if you learn what those are,
if you have some idea of what those are,
you’re going to have a
better sense when you encounter them of how they fit into the big picture and, more importantly,
the portrait of Jesus that that author is trying to paint for you.
I don’t know if you would agree with this,
I think I would add to that.
I think the thing that’s very important to be aware of is some of the questions of who
it was written to.
And in some books that’s more clear than others,
and there’s diversities there,
sometimes there’s debates.
But a book like Romans,
for instance, when you get to Romans and you sort of learn just
a tiny bit about the people to whom it was most likely written and some of the struggles
and challenges that they were going through,
it adds so much life to the book.
And we’ll see that in very clear colors as you read the Gospels,
four different accounts of Jesus’s life,
and
striking similarities throughout all of them.
But some of the differences when you think about who those books were written to just
add so much dimensionality to those books.
It takes it from what might seem like a dry history to living purposefully written and
really heart changing kind of books, I think.
I agree 100%.
When you understand the differences between Matthew and Luke,
you know how much it means
when Matthew says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” and Luke says,
“Blessed are the poor.”
Matthew says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and Luke says,
“Blessed are the hungry.”
That’s a reflection of who they are as people and what their conviction is about following
Christ.
And again, it’s not to pit them against one another,
it’s to say that by adding both voices
to the story of Jesus,
it deepens our understanding of who he is and what it means to follow him.
And you’ll see that clearly if you are aware of some of those things as you enter the stories, I think.
So, we’re going to put this in practice, actually.
The next episode of this podcast is going to deal with Matthew,
and that is going to
release, actually, this coming weekend right before the reading starts.
So if you want to get a sense of some of that material,
make sure to jump back in and check
out on Saturday the same place where you got this podcast because we’re going to be dealing
with some of that issue,
or some of those things, rather,
when we turn our attention
to that next episode.
Any other thoughts on Bibles?
I do think we should include a brief word about the message, Eugene Peterson’s translation.
Eugene Peterson’s message lives sort of between translation and paraphrase in that he did
work from the original languages,
but when it came time to do the translation,
he very much endeavored to create something readable.
And the result is really remarkable.
I will say that I think for people who maybe aren’t really familiar with the Bible,
the message can take things in a slightly different meaning than traditional translations.
I think if you’re familiar with the Scripture,
if you’ve read the New Testament several times,
reading it in the message can be really helpful.
I think if you’re reading in the NIV or the NRSV and you have a message next to you,
or if you want to read in the message,
but then check it against one of those other translations,
that can also be very helpful.
I do
generally caution against using the message
as your only Bible,
as I think it’s a really helpful tool,
but not a great solo tool.
You may not agree with that.
No, I do agree.
I think I’m trying to…
A way that you could look at that is I think you come to the Bible and you read the Bible,
say that your translation’s in NIV and that you read that regularly.
I think that’s a helpful witness because the people who have translated that for you are
doing the best that they can to
reflect the same thing that the original disciples were
receiving when they got that letter.
Eugene Peterson’s Bible,
for me,
is more of an eye-opening kind of Bible.
When you’ve read the Bible quite a bit,
you might have the tendency to read over things,
to gloss over things.
You might find your eyes moving quicker than your brain can keep up because you think you
know what it says.
What Eugene Peterson does really well is he helps make you pause and hear it in a new
way, and sometimes that’s a helpful way to dig deeper.
But I would agree completely that to jump in there,
you may be tempted to hear the Bible
in a way that is more of an interpretation than it is a reflection of what was intended.
Yeah, I find the message maybe not a good choice for beginners to use that language.
I think that’s fair.
And I certainly would say,
just for this project,
as you’re thinking of a Bible,
thinking of a Bible that’s going to help you read and to do that,
lots of times message Bibles don’t
even have verse markers in it.
Which isn’t a huge deal,
but once again, I do think that’s another barrier towards the
discussion groups that we’re going to be talking about in just a moment.
Yes, if you go into a discussion group with a message,
your Bible will say very different
things than most of the people you’re discussing it with.
So maybe we talk about discussion groups,
OK?
So Pastor Clayton has already mentioned at the forefront of this conversation that those
groups are happening at different places,
different times.
I won’t repeat that.
You can find that information on the website or in the printed material that we have
available beginning on this kickoff Sunday.
But let’s talk a little bit about the purpose of those groups so that if I decided I am
going to go to a group,
what can I expect?
What’s the purpose?
Yeah, I think our tradition is a good guide.
Our heritage sort of tells us that the Bible shouldn’t be read in a vacuum.
It should be read individually,
but it should be put in conversation with Christians who
are also reading their scripture.
And that’s what we’re hoping to do,
to get people together,
to talk about what it is
say to you, what does it say to us,
what surprises you, what troubles you, what challenges you.
And that’s best done,
I think, in community so that we get to do that personal work on our own.
But then we get to come and be a part of a bigger process that provides discernment,
not just for us as individuals,
but together as a community of faith.
And that’s the hope of the discussion group,
that there’s some encouragement in it,
that there’s a chance to encounter new ideas in it,
that there’s a place to discuss something
you’ve heard or think you’ve encountered in the text,
and to put that out there for
other people to be a part of.
Right, it’s a group for an encouragement is a word that you just used.
I don’t know if you would add.
I do think it’s also a group for accountability, in a sense,
because I have a really
close friend who I once asked,
you know, why do you go to Bible study every week?
And the answer to that was quite simply,
because if I didn’t go to Bible study,
I wouldn’t read my Bible.
And I think there’s some truth in that,
that when we get 45 days into this project,
the excitement that is felt around this idea today may be a little lessened.
And if that’s the case,
and you get to day 43 and your Bible sitting on the bedside and
you look at it and think,
I’d maybe rather just roll over and get 15 extra minutes of sleep this morning,
that group may provide for you an opportunity to stay true to this
throughout the entire course,
that you’ve got people who you know,
are reading it with
you and making that same commitment.
And I’m excited about the idea that we could have potentially 100 plus people reading the
same thing at the same time,
engaging in meaningful ways about it here within our church family.
And that’s a really exciting possibility.
So I think the discussion groups can become an anchor in that way.
Absolutely.
And with 500 members,
we better have more than 100.
I was trying to be conservative.
Yeah,
that’s good.
While making our way towards sort of last words here,
I’ll let Clint close us out.
I want to say,
first of all, thank you for going through the work to find this podcast.
If you have suggestions or feedback on what materials or content or discussion group things
would be helpful as this process goes forward,
please make sure to let us know in the office.
And we want to be very responsive to that.
And also just want to say thank you for your interest in this this challenge.
And as you make this a part of your next 90 days,
I hope that we might add to the scripture’s
prayer and particularly prayer that the Jesus that we are pointed to in these
very ancient texts will be the same one who animates our church community so that when people walk through our
doors, they can look and see our lives together and see the very person that these texts are
pointing us to.
Yeah, and I think I would close with the idea.
I think I would add the idea that as we read the scripture,
let us try to be open.
We are going to encounter some things that trouble us.
We’re going to encounter some things that confuse us.
We’re going to bump into some hard things that the Bible says that we have not yet figured out.
We will probably, if we’re open and honest,
be offended in a place or two.
And I think the point of this process,
the point of this experiment is
less to get through the words and the chapters and the numbers and the verses,
and more so to see what we learn about following Jesus as we look into the scripture.
Don’t get bogged down.
If you don’t know,
if you read the name of a place and you don’t know what that means, that’s okay.
There are lots of tools.
You can look that up if you’re curious.
Do keep in mind,
though, that most of what is written in the scripture,
the authors put there for a reason.
They very intentionally chose words to try and tell us certain things and speak to us about
certain things in terms of what it means to follow Christ.
And so, listen.
This is as much about listening to the scripture as reading the scripture.
And give yourself time and space to do that physically and mentally and spiritually.
And I think you’ll be blessed as we go through this together and we pray that we all will.
Thanks for tuning in.
We look forward to talking with you in a couple days.