Everything You Never Knew You Didn’t Know about the Bible Historical Foundations of the Bible Adult Formation/Spiritual Life Thursday,

Take a moment to breathe deeply. Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your presence and the presence of your Son as we gather in his name. He is the Word that you speak to us, and we ask that you help us to listen attentively. We ask that you help us to breathe with the Spirit that you breathe into us. And we ask this through Christ our Lord, Amen. Well, good evening! You are definitely a larger crowd than I expected. What I thought I would do for three weeks is to discuss various themes that are usually overlooked when people talk about the Bible. The topics I want to deal with are Scripture itself, then inspiration and revelation, and then finally the Old Testament and the relevance of the Old Testament to a Christian believer. What people usually do is they get the Bible and they start reading. And I’m not saying that’s not a good approach, but very often they overlook some very basic themes, some very basic principles, that really should be at the back of our minds when we read the Bible. For one thing, the Bible is really written to be read out loud. And many of us will sit silently and read passages with our mind, but the Bible is really not meant to be rea