People read the Bible for various reasons. Some study the Bible for academic reasons related to Ancient Near-Eastern religions. Others see the Bible as a history book of Israel. Some readers study the Bible for positive maxims about life. Still others read the Bible devotionally to learn more about God.
We study the Bible because we believe the Bible is revelation. We believe the Bible is authored by the Spirit of God cooperating with human writers in some way to express a full telling of a story that is captured succinctly in the gospel. We study the Bible because we believe God reveals Himself through the text of the Bible. In the Bible, we encounter God and are transformed. As we encounter God, we develop God’s character. We care about the things God cares about. We act the way God acts. We react the way God reacts. We come to trust and rely on God with more in our life as our lives and circumstances change.
We study the Bible with the expectation of encountering God, learning more about who God is, and being shaped by these encounters.
To that end, we offer a hermeneutics book and the Regarding Bible study series. If you are interested in studying the Bible with the gospel as the lens of your interpretation, you may enjoy our approach. In our own study of hermeneutics, we have appreciated many of the early Church Fathers, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Martin Luther. Among more recent scholars’ approaches, we have been impacted by the approaches of Henri De Lubac, Hans Frei, Gerhard Meier, Frances Young, Brevard Childs, and John Sailhamer among others.
The goal of the Regarding Bible study series is to offer a series of Bible studies through every book of the Bible with each lesson addressing theological content in the text, God’s character or activity, how Christians should respond to God, and real world applications of this response to God.
We do not deny that there are multiple approaches to studying the Bible. No one can lay claim to “This is THE method.” We believe methods are always aimed at some end goal.
If your end goal for studying the Bible is learning more about God’s essence, character, actions, and relationship with humanity and creation, then you might enjoy our Regarding series.
If your end goal for studying the Bible is to develop God’s character and become more like God, then you might enjoy our Regarding series.
If your end goal of studying the Bible is to apply the theological meaning of the text to your everyday life, then you might enjoy our Regarding series.
If you are interested in topics like understanding Christ in the Old Testament or gospel-centered readings of the Scripture, then you might enjoy our Regarding series.
College and Clayton Press 