Why does this Bible fly?

Because for ministers, time is short.

We love the Word of God.  We know how important it is to study the scripture.  We long to understand it better, and we yearn to share that understanding in our preaching and our teaching.

But ministry makes many demands on our time with many different tasks of administration, visitation, counseling, and the multitude of emergencies both big and small.  Study takes time, and we do not have the time to study well.

So we depend on things we half remember from Sunday School. We rely on commentaries (especially those that agree with us).  We depend on getting a flash of insight.

However, there may be a different way.

Suppose we could find an approach to Bible study that allowed us to ask deep questions of texts in just a few moments.  Suppose we had tools that could enable us to find answers to those questions.  Suppose we had a method to link what we find to the sermons we preach and the lessons we teach--easily. 

And just suppose those tools were available not just to scholars, not just to seminary-trained pastors, but to everyone, including lay ministers, even including lay members.

I've pondered these things for several years as a pastor.  And I have come up with just such an approach, just such tools.  The full title I've given for this approach is "Hermeneutics on the Fly: Biblical Interpretation for the Hurried and the Harried."  Yes, there's a fancy word in the title; you'll have to learn what it means, and I'd be delighted to teach you.

I can show you tools for study that you can start using in the first five minutes after you read a text.  I can show you how you can become your own commentator, even with unfamiliar passages, so that you're ready for a real dialogue when you do pick up a commentary.  I can show you how to listen for the communication that arises from the text and avoid introducing your own assumptions.

Why does this Bible fly?  Because it's possible to read it and understand what God wants to communicate through it, and it's possible--even in the parish setting--to do this quickly.

After all the Word of God should not just fly; it should soar.

Interested?  Click on some of the menu items to find out more.