Have you ever struggled while reading the Bible and wondered where the nearest translator is?
Jo welcomes Eric Larson, author of the innovative resource . He offers us compelling stories, imagery and practical charts that create just the right context in guiding us through a study of the New Testament.
He also tackles ten helpful questions we can ask for each of the 27 New Testament books. It’s a fresh New Testament GPS and boost to your biblical literacy! Here are the directions we take in our conversation:
We begin by looking at some fascinating statistics that show a wide slice of Americans believe the Bible to be a uniquely powerful source of wisdom. Yet those same numbers reveal that most who believe that to be the case admit they don’t open their Bibles! Why is that? Eric believes it comes down three things. First there is an intimidation factor. People don’t want to get this sacred book wrong somehow. Others simply don’t know where to begin with their study. And then there is also a real fear of the Old Testament with its cultural dissimilarity to our own.
Why is context so vital to our understanding of the Bible? When we don’t have the correct understanding of the scenario in which these stories are taking place, we may not grasp the full meaning of what we’re reading.
Eric says he found success in his book and his study be taking elements of God’s Word piece by piece and working toward the story as a whole.
We touch on the power of learning visually when it comes to the Bible. Eric explains how we see that truth in the Bible itself. Fully 90% of the information we take in every day comes visually, and we learn sixty thousand times faster from visual sources than simply reading something!
