Biblefresh: it could change your world

Please tell us about a time in your life when God spoke to you most vividly and personally through the Bible. Which passage was it and what did it mean to you at the time?

One of the times when God has spoken most vividly and personally was as a research student when my work was in the origin of the universe and the galaxies and how galaxies form.  One day I was reading Colossians ch.1 v15-20 and was caught by the verse ‘In him all things cohere’.  It struck me in a brand new way that the reason I was able to do science, the reason that there are laws of physics at the heart of the universe, is because all creation has coherence and further than that, Jesus is the source of that coherence.  Therefore to do science is to explore the coherence put at the heart of the universe, whose source is Jesus.  To do science is a Christian ministry.

In recent years what has helped to keep the Bible fresh for you?

The Bible is continually fresh for me if I allow it to speak to me.  Allowing it to speak to me means that I change often the method of reading and study.  I have grown to appreciate the Anglican cycle of Morning Prayer here in St John’s, Durham University, which reads whole passages of scripture every morning.   I like Bible commentaries, I like the opportunity of preaching from scripture and I like reading the Bible now on my mobile phone.  Perhaps most of all, the thing that’s kept the Bible fresh for me is the reading of the Bible together with colleagues and fellow church members and seeing God speak within the sense of group study.

What does your regular practice of Bible reading look like?

My regular practice of Bible reading at the moment is about reading through the Bible in one year, using a rather old outline of how one does that, but reading the text directly from my mobile phone.  I am not a good morning person so I have never been one who has been able to get up very early in the morning, but I do make time during the day, sometimes at lunchtime, sometimes just after breakfast to read the Bible then.

What would you say to a Christian who is struggling to read the Bible?

I think I would want to say to a Christian who is struggling to read the Bible that sometimes it does require discipline and sometimes you just have to persevere but there are huge amount of ways to help you to read the Bible.  It is good to read it alone but it is also good to read it with others.  An amazing thing about the Bible is as you persevere so it will shape, transform and excite you.

What is your prayer for the Biblefresh initiative?

My prayer for the Biblefresh initiative is that people would simply be excited with the gift of the Scriptures, the gift of God’s own word in a way that’s accessible to us every day.  But further, my prayer would be that we learned to understand and live Scripture rather than just knowing about it.

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