Issue 29 What's so great about the Old Testament?Blog | Boom: Let’s bring real life to the Bible
Boom: Let’s bring real life to the Bible
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 19.12.21
Here’s a question. There has never been a time when the Bible has been more accessible and available, especially in English, than it is today. There are more translations, more commentaries, more daily reading guides, helps, devotionals and apps. Many of them are free of charge. So why is it that our generation knows and uses the Bible less than ever before?
Why is it that we can have scripture at our fingertips in ways that previous generations couldn’t dream of, and yet our engagement with it is in such steep decline?
Some radical voices have dared to suggest that it is not in spite of all these heroic efforts to mediate the text that we know it less, but because of it.
Historic research in the United States indicates that the average Christian has nine different copies of the Bible and is looking for more. That’s why new translations appear every year. It’s as if they are hungry to find God in scripture, but they don’t know how to access the text. The Old Testament in particular is mystifying. Somehow people sense that the Bible is a unique source of essential knowledge about the most important things in life, and yet they don’t know what to do with it.
