How Well Do You Know Scripture?

by Rev. Rebecca Edwards

In my sermon on November 13, I threw out a challenge for all of us to engage with scripture in deeper ways. I am following up with some of my favorite recommendations for ways to do that.

The Bible Challenge (read the whole Bible in a year): 

• What Is the Bible Challenge?
• Amazon sells several Bible editions for reading over the course of a year, including the One Year Bible (NIV, NLT, or KJV), the One Year Bible for Women and the One Year Bible Companion.
• One Year Bible Online: Gives daily readings either chronologically (start at Genesis, end at Revelation) or broken up so you have a bit of Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms or Proverbs daily.
• Bible Gateway Reading Plans: Allows you to choose your reading plan and translation.
• A unique approach where you read from a different biblical genre (law, history, Psalms, poetry, prophecy, Gospels, and epistles) each day of the week.

There are many other ways to deepen your relationship with the Bible if you are not up for a year-long challenge. Some of my favorite include:

• Opening the Bible by my seminary professor Roger Ferlo: This is part of the Church's Teaching Series and is a great introduction for how we approach reading the Bible.
• the Daily Office: Read most of the Bible over the course of two years with short daily readings that take less than 10 minutes a day. Office readings are printed in the back of the prayer book (p.933-1001) – we have just begun Year Two. See my list of electronic resources below if you prefer to get the readings on a mobile device.
• The Five Books of Moses by Everett Fox: This is a translation of the Torah that captures many nuances of the original Hebrew. It offers a different twist on familiar stories and has interesting notes on the translation.

electronic resources:

• Mission St. Clare app for iphone: gives complete services of the Daily Office in English and Spanish, including feast days, readings, cycle of prayer, and weekly collects
• "Lectionary" app for your ipod, ipad, or iphone: gives Sunday and daily readings. There is a free Droid app called "Pocket Common Worship & Prayer" that gives weekly or daily services (morning prayer, evening prayer, night prayer) with the readings inserted. You can also create and save your own liturgies.
• Glo Bible app: lots of cool maps and a Bible atlas
• Bible 365 HD app: a roadmap for reading the Bible in a year, with a bit of Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms for each day
• One Year Audio Bible app: for you auditory learners out there

human resources:

I also mentioned in my sermon that we have many members of our congregation who have studied in the Education for Ministry program (EFM), which involves intensive study of scripture. You can learn more about it here: http://www.sewanee.edu/EFM/ Good Sammers who have participated in EFM are:

• alumni: Robin Fowler, Dan Shawler, Leanne Shawler, Germaine Bergeron-Lynn, Sally Nichols
• 4^th year: Margaret Bookwalter
• 2^nd year: Kathleen Ide, Equilla Luke
• 1^st year: Verdery Kassebaum, Sandy Hammond

There are more recommendations where these came from, so please don't hesitate to ask if there is something you are interested in!

For those of you who are already regular Bible readers, what are your favorite resources to add to the list?