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?

My whole Christian life of some 42 years now has been punctuated with many vivid occasions, but perhaps the most significant was in the third year of my ministry when I was desperate about the state of the church I was pastoring. The letter to the Laodicean church in Revelation 3 came alive to me in a remarkable way. I was gripped by its message and knew that in preaching from it our church would never be the same again. I called the message ‘The Church that made Jesus sick!’ and truly it was a watershed Sunday and the beginning of an amazing venture of renewal and change as Christ spoke prophetically into our situation. The church was transformed!

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

The discovery of the Bible’s prophetic power to address my own life, as well as the circumstances around me. I treat the Bible as wholly inspired, completely infallible, and quite literally God’s word to man. This has shaped my concept of preaching, and the reverence and weight I accord to the Bible. This high view of scripture predisposes us to see it as God’s living word and therefore perennially fresh. This has been my experience for decades and is the heart of my Christian life and ministry.

What does your regular practice of Bible reading look like?

I try to read the Bible through in one year, but often end up spending too long on specific books that grab me. Last year however, I worked through the new approach from CWR: Cover to Cover Complete: Through the Bible as it happened. This was in a more contemporary translation than the NIV, and was marked by striking, yet succinct, meditations on the scriptures. Something else that helps me is using accessible Bible commentaries that work through whole books, such as IVP’s The Bible Speaks Today, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries and Preaching the Word edited by Kent Hughes. I have also used Tom Wright’s new series of commentaries on the whole of the New Testament (published by SPCK).

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

This is a bit like responding to someone who is struggling to eat. You will surely starve, become sickly and even begin to ‘die’ if you neglect the Bible. I would recommend that if you are not already, become part of a church where the Bible is handled well in weekly preaching and teaching. This will awaken an appetite to know more. In addition, I would recommend that you begin by reading the four gospels in slow, deliberate and meditative ways, and discover how Christ leaps from the page into your life. I’d also recommend a daily reading plan that takes you through the whole of the Bible and methodically develop the discipline to do this. It’s likely to change your life!

What is your prayer for the Biblefresh initiative?

Decades of sceptical scholarship and popular books like The Da Vinci Code have marinated both the public and the church in the deep suspicion that the Bible is no more inspired than Aesop’s Fables, full of errors, and dangerous beliefs – so why bother with it? Biblefresh will let the Bible loose again in the minds of both rooky novices and jaded old hands. Light the fuse and God’s dynamite should do the rest! Masses of people will be enchanted to rediscover the big picture of the Bible’s world-shaking worldview and become agents for widespread conversion and massive cultural change in our nation, just as previous generations experienced this too.

I pray that an increasingly Biblically illiterate church, which in many cases has removed itself from seriously handling the Bible, will bring the Scriptures once again to centre stage in preaching ministry and personal devotions.  The results for our churches and nation are incalculable.

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