Saving the Bible from Ourselves, Book Summary, Recommended Reading

Saving the Bible from Ourselves: Learning to Read and Live the Bible Well by Glenn R. Paauw is a compelling critique of contemporary Bible reading habits and a call to return to more immersive, context-rich engagement with Scripture. Paauw argues that over centuries, well-intentioned editorial decisions—such as adding chapter and verse divisions, footnotes, and cross-references—have fragmented the Bible, encouraging readers to treat it as a collection of isolated "truthlets" rather than a cohesive narrative. (The Gospel Coalition, Living Theology | John B. MacDonald)

Saving the Bible from Ourselves, Book Summary, Recommended Reading

I have found that the journey to getting smarter about your spiritual life and even your church means figuring out if what you are being told is correct or not.  I will be listing several books that are puzzle pieces in figuring out how to do that.  Glenn Paauw has several points that have made all the difference in my spiritual journey.  Hopefully you will get something out of it as well.,

The book identifies seven prevalent distortions in how we interact with the Bible and proposes corresponding remedies:

1. The Elegant Bible: Critiques the cluttered presentation of Scripture and advocates for a cleaner, more readable format that restores the Bible's literary elegance.

2. The Feasting Bible: Challenges the habit of "snacking" on isolated verses and encourages readers to engage in "big readings"—immersive reading of entire books or sections to grasp the broader narrative.(The Englewood Review of Books)

3. The Historical Bible: Emphasizes the importance of understanding the Bible's historical context to avoid misinterpretation and to appreciate its original message.

4. The Storiented Bible: Advocates for recognizing the Bible as a unified story that invites readers to participate in its redemptive drama, rather than viewing it as a collection of moral lessons.(The Gospel Coalition)

5. The Earthly Bible: Counters the tendency to treat the Bible as an escape from the world, promoting instead a view that connects biblical teachings to real-world issues and earthly life.(Living Theology | John B. MacDonald)

6. The Synagogue Bible: Critiques the trend of individualized Bible reading and encourages communal engagement, reflecting the Bible's origins in communal worship and teaching.

Notes and excerpts from my personal notebook, these are straight from the book and are to be savored.

Saving the Bible from ourselves Highlights

• The Bible needs a restoration, when we harm the Bible we hinder that errand.
• Abuse of the text
• The words on the page are not common currency
• one of the core reasons for our Bible engagement breakdown is that so many would be Bible readers have sold the mistaken notion that the Bible is a look it up and find the answer handy guide to life.
• this topical search mode of the Bible use directly undermines authentic Bible engagement the advent of electronic bibles with their speedy fine diverse feature is only making it worse
• Many books have no candidates for the “my favorite scripture add award” and our studiously avoided by the verse pickers and therefore effectively decanonized
• because this approach is so widely practiced and officially endorsed in Christian communities even well-intentioned readers are inoculated against real Bible encounters
• this superficial use of scriptures actually destructive because those who practice it operate under the illusion that they are engaging the Bible when they are not. they're rarely even aware of what they're missing.
• the Bible needs to be saved because it's been falsely promised to us and falsely delivered
• the Bible needs saving not because of any defect in itself but because we've buried it boxed it in wallpapered it over it neutered it distorted it insulate isolated it individualized it minimized it misread it lied about it they based it and oversold it
• what we have not done, truth be told, is trusted it to be itself
• as always God does his work despite us as much as because of us but this is no excuse for us knowingly persisting in error
• there are seven perspectives that will come together to form a new paradigm of the Bible
• it comes down to being attentive to two key questions what does the Bible and what are we supposed to do with it?
• Our hearts should be hurt by the current state of the Bible
• if the Bible isn't what we thought, we have to face the implications. If this is not a users manual I'm holding in my hands or a collection of individual statements numbered for handy reference, I'm going to have to rethink my strategy for what to do with the Bible
• the Bible is actually a collection of ancient writings
• God made the world to be a place in which form and content are meant to work together
• we are obligated to receive the submitted writing on the authors terms before we take over with our own attempt to use it on ours
• we have this universal compulsion to tamper with the sacred text.
• THE ELEGNAT BIBLE
• the trouble with traffic engineers is that when there's a problem with the road they always try to add something
• Naively believing that the Bible is essentially a collection of ideas, we've convinced ourselves that the form, structure and visual appearance of the text is irrelevant and concerned ourselves only with the content. If the words are there, we presume the rest of it doesn't really matter as if reading the book of Romans in the Geneva Bible is like lead reading a letter from the Christian leader to the 1st century church
• a crucial shift will have to take place in order for us to break off our love affair with the fragmented Bible
• the elegant Bible begins with the questions what is the Bible and how can we honor what it is? We need a bit of cultural unmaking a dismantling of the modernist overlay on the Bible.
• it would be healthier and show a greater knowledge of the Bible itself if we were to adopt the practice of referencing by context and content
• we first employed proof texting for doctrinal squabbles and apparently now it's needed for every devotional use of each fragment as well
• this is in regards to chapters and verse numbers, but verses are particularly pernicious because they positively encourage the reader to take each numbered thought out of context as a standalone statement of truth and to take the bad news and drop it to the level of devastating, verses have now become the primary way millions of people approach the Bible
• verses that are read in isolation, selected by topic, arranged in groups, sent out in kitchy decorated Facebook updates- this is what passes for Bible knowledge in our ERA
• The word scripture has even been transformed rather than using the word in its original sense of a complete writing a book of the Bible, people now commonly use it to refer to a single one of these artificially created fragments if we were to do nothing but take the verse numbers out of our bibles and refuse to use them as references in our Bible practices this alone might spark a Bible reengagement movement
• section headings tend to tell the reader what this section is about their directive and limiting and it's easy to take them as part of the Bible
• in reference to cross references karma sadly the crucial step of determining the meaning of these various freestanding statements and their full context is simply overlooked
• Bible publishers consider taking the Hippocratic Oath and apply it to the sacred writings in their care first do no harm. I added so should speakers on the stage
• The snacking Bible
• a specific kind of religious reading is encouraged, it's called fragmentary study this is the heaping up of proof texts that have become the standard method of verifying the scriptural character of teaching about doctrine or life.
• this obliterates the ecclesiastical opposition
• but others would come to realize all the possibilities of a Bible like this. If the Bible is filled with these little pieces of spiritual truth then finding the right ones for arguing with Catholics this is only the beginning.
• We have a tendency to snack on the Bible, to pick little bits and use them as the choice morsel of the day versus feasting karma feasting is a entirely different animal (ken)
• Here's an example find the fragments you need at the moment, if you're looking for your daily inspiration then find a devotional fragment. if you're arguing with the local heretic find a doctrinal fact fragment if you are facing an ethical question find a moral fragment they're all in there neatly numbered for you you just have to find the good ones many of the fragments won't fit your predetermined needs and they can be safely ignored
• We feed and highly selective small bite sized pieces for our own personal edification, it's an unhealthy but hard habit to break
• there are some bibles out there that modeled ourselves as the handbook model of engagement
• immediacy of application is the demand there is no time for slowing down and receiving the Bible on its own terms.
• The specialty study Bible model can have the effect of turning bibles into mirrors the material focuses more on us and on our own pre understanding of our needs than it does on genuinely opening the gates to the world of the Bible. Oh boy
• There is a premise that an immediate shot of a little piece of Bible medicine will make things better completely independent of the embodied and original meaning of the words on the page and woe to anyone who tries to take the medicine away
• this model of minimalistic Bible engagement has been absorbed at a deep level and forms a clear answer in readers minds to our basic question what is the Bible? And what are we supposed to do with it? People seem to have no clear idea
• how does one engage the Bible? Is it to offer nanosecond topical search based options on verses? The implication is that the bible's teaching on any topic can be found by simply collecting statements and adding them up. Oh man
• the fact is that there are many people who want the Bible to be such a guidebook, the Bible is useful but not in a handbook kind of way
• Have you ever actually read a how to manual? God has so much more in mind for us as significant thinking fully human and divine image bearing creatures. We should be thankful that he doesn't think so little of us as to give us merely a handbook
• the Bible does not offer answers to problems, especially not to 21st century problems only in a few places does it even offer straightforward moral counsel.
• When we direct people to use the Bible like this in a kind of” how to” book we are being disingenuous the same thing goes for when we preach it that way. We are concealing what the Bible really is and falsely telling them it's something else. Bam it's a setup for failure
• Bible snacking is highly selective it filters the Bible into predetermined categories of things we already know we want to hear
• Rampant cherry picking
• the snacking Bible is not great news it has gospel verses but no gospel because the gospel is the announcement of a particular turn of events within an ongoing story. Romans is a carefully crafted letter to a congregation of believers asking for their support for further missionary work.
• You can't possibly know the gospel if you don't know the story and you can't know the story in all its texture and richness if you don't read the Bible at length becoming familiar with all its territory
• the practice must be named for what it is “verse jacking.” To hijack something is to seize control of it to impose a purpose other than its originally intended 1 it is an aggressive action, a breaking in and taking over to force ones own will upon something. This ice isolated verses out of context and using them for other extraneous purposes is a form of hijacking and it's a misuse of the Bible.
• Feasting Bible
• My premise is that the world of normal Bible practices is due for a revolution we need a new bible paradigm because the combined effect of the modernist Bible and the practices that we have built around it have resulted in a crisis.
• But paradigm shifts have always been difficult there have been those whose strength of commitment to the old paradigm has prevented them from ever accepting the new one.
• a paradigm shift is needed in order to return the Bible to us in all its fullness and power
• This is precisely the perennial danger we face with the Bible, namely that are urgent and well meaning desire to find something that speaks immediately and directly to our own situation will derail the intention and meaning first place there by the Bible authors
• we take the shortcuts; Reading out of context reading only carefully selected portions, reading quick and dirty
• the scriptures have prepared their own feast and is rather rude to show up at the door with our own preconceived ideas about what we have to find there
• turning the Bible into a slow food experience is difficult for us
• Part of our conversion process, our adoption of new Bible engagement paradigm, will be to come to terms with the fact that the Bible was written for us, but not directly to us
• we need to give the Bible the honor of our time
• we have elevated Bible study over Bible reading this has been a crucial mistake
• but Bible study is a specialized activity, subservient to a larger goal. Frogs are not given their place in the creation to serve as specimens for dissection. And if I am unfamiliar with frogs as they jump and croak in the wider world, taking up their role in the ecosystem of my backyard pond, cutting them open in a laboratory will not enable me to know and understand them
• reading any book of the Bible from the first to the last will immediately put the reader into the midst of a hermeneutical cycle.
• I won't understand the complete Bible without comprehending the building blocks of its individual books
• one important part of the recovery of the Bible will involve the rediscovery of a community based engagement the circle was always meant to be navigated with others eating alone is sometimes a necessity but meals are best enjoyed with company
• . To whom was this book first addressed what does this book trying to do where does this book fit into the big narrative of the Bible what unique contribution might it be making?
• When we begin to eat our bibles like this we will indeed discover a whole new meal without the pressure to instantly apply every fragment to my daily life. This requires tabling my personal agenda
• I will soon discover that if I'm interested in the Bible I will have to gain an interest in Israel and her place in the story. But if I persist and submit to this book, I will slowly digest the story of Israel perhaps it will begin to dawn on me how my destiny and everyone's destiny is involved in what happens in this ongoing struggle between God and the family of Jacob. I will no longer have to be driven by the frantic search for an application of every piece of the Bible to my daily life I can relax and commit to learning israel's covenant history by reading its books as the long form narrative that they are.
• But our first answer to the question of what are we supposed to do with the Bible, is to accept it on its own terms by reading its own discrete literary units dash not versus, not chapters, not topically headed sections, but whole books. This gives the Bible a much better chance of achieving its mission of transforming lives
• Annan historical reading of the Bible increases the chance that I will operate as if we are unique in all of human history, so certainly the Bible had us and our timing view when it was speaking. That's called chronic centrism which is a biased belief.
• Annan historical Bible leads to misunderstandings of what the Bible is actually seeing and replacing its intention with our own meaning instead
• It's superficially easier to take the Bible and little decontextualized pieces and think that they dropped from heaven as God's simple supernatural words just for me we've tried to find a way to live off these morsels but it just doesn't work we're biblically under fed.
• Historical Bible
• it's hard sometimes to even tell what's going on and what the thread really is. That's because the Bible is history, and history is like that
• the Bible is also historical in its subject matter, it all revolves around what God has done and is continuing to do in history. So reading the material in a non historical way radically deconstructs the text at more than one level.
• God has chosen to use existing forms and elements which are language culture history and literature as his means to communicate thus our good reading will mean accepting, learning and accounting for these human elements
• We have to resist the impulse to anachronistic reading at every step what does the Bible say about marriage? Economics? The creation of the world? Anything else we're interested in? In all these cases in more we intuitively want the Bible to speak directly to us. But it doesn't it spoke to its original audience. It speaks indirectly to us. What it says about anything and everything it says in the language, literary forms and patterns of thought common to ancient worldviews and cultures. They are not addressed from our present day point of view reading her questions, expectations, science and ways of viewing the world into the Bible is to reject the revelation God has chosen to give us. The way God has chosen to speak to these and all human struggles is to not give us answers lifted out of time place, culture and historical setting that would be something closer to the goals of Greek philosophy or the European enlightenment.
• The whole Bible is for us, even if it wasn't written to us but appropriating the message for ourselves, now, means first doing the necessary due diligence on what the message was for others, then. The temptation is ever before us to short circuit this step we're eager to make the connection to our lives and our concerns. (we are stuck here and it's not changed)
• but if we skip the first crucial steps of historical understanding the connection we find will be the wrong one accepting the historical Bible means reading the Bible in its own way.
• Historically honest reading of the Bible can start to sound more like an academic exercise than a spiritual journey
• the point is that the promise will be made good when we attend well to the true nature of the writings We are regularly tempted to read our history writing standards back into the Bible as if the ancients thought about history the same way we do..
• As the Bible progress his book by book the intentions of God are slowly unveiled.
• I've already argued that non historical readings in which we put our own concerns first and then go searching for the answers in the text are our constant temptation. Fall to them and it's possible to massively misunderstand the meaning of the text.
• If someone is determined to ignore the first steps of historical understanding and carry on as if the choice of literary form by the bible's author doesn't matter, everything from that point on can go wrong, crazy wrong.
• Good historical diligence will help spare us these and other false readings of the Bible(my thought could this be the diligence that proverbs mentions?)
• Core theological questions sometimes get skewed because we're not used to reading biblical texts according to their patterns of thought. The burning issues of biblical times don't always immediately align with what we think should be important in the text. For example we have placed front and center the question of how individual sinners gain a right standing before a holy God. Some passages we thought were talking about this turned out to be struggling with how Jews and gentiles can get together to become the new family of God (huge)
• Wrestle with this; we have long thought that salvation meant going to heaven when we die and that this is what Jesus was referred to in his teaching on the Kingdom of heaven. But historical study of the setting and language of 1st century Judaism helped us to learn that biblical salvation has a much richer and broader redemption of the whole cosmos in mind, and that the Kingdom is a hope for God's will to invade the earth, and not for the flying away to some other place.
• We are not at liberty to manufacture a different Jesus
• trying to avoid history is to turn away from what God is doing in the world not taking seriously the historical nature of the Bible allows us to embrace a view of salvation that puts God's redemption to another time and another place
• De- dramatized Bible.
• As freestanding bits of information they are likely to mislead as to reveal
• Small readings deconstruct the meta narrative, leaving us with mere smatterings of the record of God's mighty acts and surprising ways.
• Begin in the middle and end in the middle, my thought on our approach to books podcasts and cherry picking
• the predominant interest is now to apply the small readings to me and my interior world the focus is personal benefit centered rather than doctrinal system centered
• This well-intentioned and warm hearted procedure is an attempt to go directly, without meditation, from the text to me. This pianistic approach only works when you're taking in very short readings the more you read the harder it is to pretend the message was written directly to you today.
• If we allow the Bible to become fragmented it is in danger of being absorbed into whatever other story is shaping our culture, and it will thus seek to shape our lives as it should.
• I like this, there's nothing quite so disconcerting to human creatures as a feeling of ongoing randomness or true chaos.
• Here's what I call a definition of a sermon: to skip the story and find the doctrinal truths buried here and there. To merely obey the commands and follow the instructions. to reduce the Bible to a topical reference book, to scan the Bible for small readings that seem to speak directly to me in my needs today without all that intervening bother of those strange people and their strange lives way back then. We should have known better the abandonment of the story and the modernist attempt to make sense of the Bible is one of the biggest mistakes Gods people have made with the scriptures in the entire history of the church. Yauza, that hurts, do you trust the story?
• We must decisively reject subpar peace mailing presentations and understandings of the Bible the saving narrative of the Bible with all its intentions to subvert and unravel its rivals to world rule is at stake
• The centerpiece of our recovery of the Bible and the heart of the chiasm of this book is the rejection of the rejection of narrative
• Sit Still and listen attentively. We've been trying for several centuries now to make Christianity work as something other than a story. Wow
• Stop oriented Bible
• reading the books as the unique compositions they are and fully engage the unique message each brings
• this kind of feasting will indeed feed us well it's almost impossible to read the whole books without facing squarely the fact that the Bible is rooted in real history reading whole books immerses us in the very thing that verse jacking pretends doesn't exist the Bible strange new world and the alternative world of the text
• this has much to do with rediscovering the narrative that's waiting to be set free and to do its work of subverting all the other metanarratives trying to run the world
• the overall Israel shape of the bible's founding narrative compels us to say that anyone who talks about the message of the Bible for any length of time without talking about Israel is not taking the narrative of the Bible seriously but many are the number who try to negate or ignore this and turn the Bible into a general treaty on the divine human relationship the various expressions of the well known evangelical “plan of salvation” are perhaps the clearest example
• Shalom producing obedience
• insufficient comprehension of the connection and continuity have the Old Testament and the New Testament puts the narrative in jeopardy
• each of the four gospels have a unique way of understanding the vital meaning of Jesus identity and work an example from
• How can the Bible possibly lead and direct our lives if we are the ones who predetermine which parts of it speak to us? Fragmentary patterns of reading entail a fragmented sense of authority
• The Bible is a Christ centered story that is as yet unconcluded we live in this unfinished space
• what the Bible does not do, though there are many who wish it did, is script our parts in any kind of detail
• we have been struggling with what exactly to do with the Bible for some time, the recovery of narrative is a vital step in this direction
• you become transformed because you discovered a whole new country and have now stepped into it the Bible is a doorway into this new stage where we have the opportunity to live new creation roles for the first time in our lives the goal of the Bible is to change live and nothing serves this goal like a lived out story
• How does the authority of the Bible actually function in our lives if it's not a reference handbook for looking up the answers? The big answer here is to become so immersed in the script of the earlier acts that we come to know this story in our bones.
• If we say we have no time or interest in this, then we are admitting up front that we don't expect to be serious gospel players. Perhaps we will be spectators to the good performances of others, but we will not be contributing to the advance of God's story in our world. Worse if we don't know the story in this profound way, we will likely hinder it we are all players already we have we are already on the stage leaving our lives the only question is what kind of players will we be
• We are God's handiwork and we are invited to create beautiful lives to adorn his creation temple
• The gospel accounts reveal that even those closest to Jesus did not decipher its real shape
• Yet we know from the very history that errors can be made and persist over time we must continuously test our views by running them hard against the text reading as well and as honestly as we are able attempting this,
• And exclusive focus on the afterlife misshapes our understanding of Christian discipleship in this world and causes us to misstate the goal of Christianity in our evangelism
• israel's story prior to the coming of the Messiah takes up about 3/4 of the bible's entire length any claim to a viable reading of the Bible must account for the role of Israel in the overall story
• All four gospels opened with this significant references to the story of Israel and then proceed to connect that story to the coming of Jesus
• the gospels don't show Jesus presenting a case for people going to heaven when they die Jesus uses the phrase the Kingdom of God and it's inauguration as the way to summarize his work
• A search and replace operation
• From start to finish the story teaches us that salvation is fundamentally restoration
• and even the word salvation refers to the return to a state of health or wholeness after suffering and illness or loss This is why the bible's own description of the destination of the story is never heaven but rather resurrection the renewal of all things the time for God to restore everything the liberation of creation a new heavens and a new earth or the life of the age to come
• The New Testament letters provide us with examples of how others earlier in the story sought to live out the newly inaugurated Jesus life in their own settings
• how can good speech and right actions contribute to the creation of Shalom in God's temple?
• How should we live if we have bad leaders?
• What is God doing to set things right in the world?
• How do we deal with conflict in the community of God's people?
• It's so deep in our western individualism that it doesn't even occur to us that our experience with the Bible and our role as significant players in the redemptive drama, should or could be centered on anything other than our own personal experience and actions. How did we manage to lose such a fundamental feature of the scriptures? How did we turn a text that is for and about communities into a private book about me and God?
• My private Bible is most definitely a modern phenomena
• What reading alone looks like:
• you're sent on a explicit mission to seek out what the text says directly to you every day in a practical way. The context or parameters of the Bible reading have been determined from the outset to be focused on an inward and personal spiritual journey you now have the expectation that this is what the Bible will do for you. Geez
• reading the Bible has become less about reality outside of me and what God might be doing there and more and more about my personal spiritual life mostly viewed in isolation
• first this way of reading the Bible leads us to mistake the intended audience of the bible's messages. The core proposal is that these and similar tools will help you quickly find the small pieces of the Bible that seemed to speak directly and meaningfully to you individually without having to bother with Who these words were first written to and what they might have meant then
• the liberties taken here and their implications are rather staggering in our zeal to get a Bible that is me first and mine second we're willing to to deny the obvious character of the scriptures as a collection of sacred writings to other people in particular times, places and situations and pretend instead that it was all meant all along to be God's special words just for me
• the Bible is what it is, and it was not inspired to be of field to be mined for my precious gem collection
• Helping individuals gain a strong sense of my presence and my peace all by itself is not at the center of the bible's concerns. The Bible has a much higher agenda and this agenda is forfeited when we merely scan for comforting verses and hopeful fragments.
• We have inherited this perspective
• these writings were not addressed directly to us but that does not mean they are not for us we merely have to get there the right way
• there was an ongoing communal immersion in the scriptures
• 1st century Judaism had a significant variety of interpretations regarding where israel's story was going as scenes and Pharisees, powerful ruling elites, and rough and tumble zealots were all vying for control of the drama
• Our spiritual leaders must also be geared towards true community engagement, not an expert monologue existing in a vacuum the leaders reading and presentation of the Bible is perhaps the first reading in the community, but it should not be the last it should be the opening of the conversation along with real leadership there must be a genuine opportunities for group dialogue and mutual listening.
• we should take up the synagogue practice of vigorous interaction over the text when a group comes together and is immersed in the Bible as a community, we should expect that there will be varying perspectives
• but the skill of learning how to appropriately share a viewpoint and also allow and respect the free expression of others viewpoints is essential if we are to have a good life together with the Bible. We must unlearn the habit of harsh antagonism towards those who read differently.
• We can disagree without having to be disagreeable
• With audiences like this, such as churches for his letters, it's no wonder that most of the addresses to “you” in the New Testament are plural, even though we regularly read them as singular
• The over individualization an interiorization of Christianity is too often reinforced by preaching that also assumes the big take away is always the purely individual application. But corporate questions must also be asked are we distinctly biblical community? Do we think of ourselves as the body of Christ first and as individual Christians second? Only together are we the body of Christ this view of things is extremely countercultural in our western world.
• It is crucial that we gain a real appreciation for how reading first and learning the Bible from multiple perspectives can be a gain, not a threat. For too long we have labored heavily under the view that there's only one right thing to say about any Bible passage. (verses what Greg says about opinion)  and that one right thing is usually so way off that it defies logic.
• Why was it necessary to present the life and ministry of Jesus from four unique perspectives? Paul was not always on the exactly the same page as the other early Christian leaders Peter and James, yet our cannon includes writing by all of them. Yes!!!
• my private Bible is an imprisoned Bible restricted from doing its God-given community building work. I am too small a person to read the Bible only by myself the Bible assumes that the only way to be properly human is to find one's identity in a community
• We've settled for an information Bible, a principled Bible that sticks to the plain facts.
• We've been conditioned to look for timeless Bible principles, moral instruction, statements of doctrine, or for warm encouraging devotional thoughts
• we want to look up something fast rather than slow down and experience the Bible on its own literary terms.
• If we won't enter this ancient literary world, leaning on its In’s and outs, we will come to know merely the shell of the Bible and not its heart
• The depth and vigor of the bibles messages are all tied up with these literary features, so when we missed them, those messages are diluted and the bible's power is drained
• If we know the way typical Hebrew parallelism works we can begin to watch for it in our reading.
• How it says it. This is the key to our recovery of the bibles inherent beauty content is content, and can always be stated badly. But style elevates content, enhances it, delivers it more effectively in winsomely the prophets don't merely denounce the idols they mock and parody them.
• If we accept this Bible honestly and quit pretending it's something else, then the chains we've wrapped around the Bible will fall away the Bible would be released to do its work
• what if moment by moment day by day we've made sense of our lives by seeing them as active continuations of the narrative we find in the sacred words

Now, what do I do with this?

Maybe turn into questions?

Maybe, if this is how your church operates….

Or have you been conditioned?  Take this test

Releasing the Bible to do its work

1. The Iconic Bible: Calls for a presentation of the Bible that honors its sacred nature, avoiding trivialization and recognizing its capacity to inspire awe and reverence.

Paauw's work is both a critique of current practices and a hopeful vision for revitalizing Bible engagement. He emphasizes that the Bible doesn't need saving due to any inherent flaw but because human practices have obscured its power and message. By returning to more thoughtful, context-aware reading habits, Paauw believes Christians can rediscover the transformative power of Scripture.(The Gospel Coalition, The Banner)