Each week, the Flourish team would like to recommend resources that will help you on your journey of Church Renewal. While we don’t endorse every single idea from every single resource we are attempting to cultivate a useful resource list for you.
Resource: Reading the Bible for All Its Worth, by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart
Background: Gordon Fee is a well-known New Testament scholar who taught at several colleges and seminaries before retiring. Douglas Stuart, conversely, is a well-know Old Testament scholar who has been a professor at Gordon Conwell seminary since 1971. These authors released the first edition of this book in 1981! It’s now in its fourth edition.
Take-aways: First a story… When I (Matt) first became a missionary with Cru in 1993, a second edition of this book was part of my new staff training curriculum. Still a fairly young Christian with no background in the church, reading and knowing the Bible was a priority for me. This book helped me understand how to “take” different parts of the Bible. This helped me not only get more out of my own personal Bible reading but enabled more profitable Bible study and gave me more of a framework to profit from preaching. Given that many of those our churches reach today have similar backgrounds and are searching for more direction than simply “attend services” and “read your Bible regularly”, this book is suitable for helping younger Christians learn how to read the Bible for their good. It is suitable for individual reading or group study.
Bonus content: Some 30+ years since my conversion, I’m still learning the Bible. In recent years, I have profited from the ministry of CBR. They offer a yearly paper journal as well as iOS and Android apps with Max McLean readings of the ESV.
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