The Bible Put to Memory

February 9, 2020 • Bethany Allen

Part 5 of the series "Scripture", as part of Practicing the Way. There’s no doubt the scripture played a central and essential role in both Jesus’ life and ministry. For Jesus, scripture was not as much tool, instrument, or weapon, as it was part of how he viewed and interacted with both God and the world. As apprentices of Jesus, if we want to live into the fullness of the Kingdom and what God is doing in and around us – we too must be people who know and have the scriptures in us.

The Bible as Spiritual Authority

February 2, 2020 • John Mark Comer

We finally come to the tricky subject of biblical authority. What is authority? Where did the Western fear of authority come from? What does it mean to say the Bible is authoritative when most of it is a story? And it has contradictory commands? We explore all this and more as we pursue reading the Bible as an act of trust in Jesus and his mental maps to reality.

The Bible as Meditation Literature

January 26, 2020 • Josh Porter

Part 3 of the series "Scripture", as part of Practicing the Way. We get frustrated with the Bible when we approach it as an encyclopedia—an entirely literal, linear one-size-fits-all manual for life in the modern world, but the Bible wasn't designed as a convenient reference manual or a textbook. The Bible describes itself as a library designed for a lifetime of ongoing meditation. For this, the way of Jesus proposes the ancient spiritual discipline of Lectio Divina.

The Bible as an Alternative Story

January 19, 2020 • John Mark Comer

Part 2 of the series "Scripture", as part of Practicing the Way. All humans beings live by a story, a narrative by which we make sense of the big questions of life – who are we? Why are we here? What’s wrong? How do we fix it? The story we live in, is the story we live out. It comes as no surprise that most of the Bible is narrative, and that together it tells a unified story that leads us to Jesus. Scripture functions as an alternative story to the many narratives of our soul and society, and calls us to live in alignment with the real, true story of God’s world.

Can We Trust the Bible?

January 12, 2020 • John Mark Comer

Part 1 of the series "Scripture", as part of Practicing the Way. In our intro teaching to the scripture practice, we approach the Bible not as critics and defenders, but as apprentices of Jesus. We explore the idea that posture is more important than technique in reading the Bible. It’s less about information and more about our spiritual formation. When read with the right heart posture, that of openness and yieldedness to God, scripture becomes one of the primary means by which the Spirit of Jesus forms us into the people we were always meant to be.