Hi, friends. I enjoyed our How to Read the Bible, and How to Pray series. I hope it meant something to you. In thinking on what to do next, I keep pondering a pivotal date we’ll come upon this summer: July 4, 2026: the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of... Today will wind up what I have to share on the overall theme of Reading the Bible. Mind you, reading the Bible is a lifetime task, privilege, challenge, and great joy – so we’re not done. Actually everything I ever send out on any topic via these emails is informed by... Last week I promised to share with you places you can find the words of others which you can employ as your own words to God. I am not sure what Rabbi Abraham Heschel means when he wrote “It is not safe to pray alone.” Of course, the point of prayer is you’re never... My friend and great scholar Ben Witherington loves to say “A text without its context is a pretext for a prooftext.” We read the Bible slowly – and go slowly enough to pay attention to who lives next door to the passage you’re reading slowly. Genesis 3:16 says quite... While I know God welcomes my sighs and groans as prayers that are plenty eloquent, I do try to find good words, expressive words, my best and most authentic words when I speak with God. Sometimes that means admitting like Moses, “I am not able to speak well” (Exodus... As Lent has begun, I pause to reflect on what we’ve covered over the past two months in thinking together about How to Read the Bible. The biggest takeaway, for me, has to be a bit simplistic, and yet ultimately the truth of the matter: the only way to read the Bible... Such a fitting day to consider Bible Reading and Prayer. We begin Lent and the rest of our lives with a quiet, prayerful, solemn service of prayer. We tell God we are sorry our lives are out of sync with God’s will, we pledge to explore hard matters for the next six... What have you found digging into Scripture? Have any of you tried the Ps I’ve suggested? Psalm 127 begins “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” A good verse if you’re about to construct a new home! – but there’s more implied, isn’t... As Valentine’s Day draws near, I love the way Jesus, when he spoke of what our connection with him and with God is like, he spoke of love. He was expanding on and embodying what was at the heart of the Jewish Scriptures, our Old Testament. Regularly, Jews then and now... What are we looking for in reading the Bible? What might we expect to find? Early on, we said to try to come at it without expectations; simply let it do what it will with us, let it have its way with us. We know this is what God wants us to read. And so we just read,... 