Scripture Engagement

Recently I was giving input to a team who had worked on Psalms. I noticed that in several places they had included footnotes referring to the New Testament use of those Psalms. One example was a footnote in Ps 34:20 'not one of [his bones] will be broken' that referred to John 19:32, 33, 36 where this prophecy is fulfilled. Now, obviously this is a useful link for readers, but it is better to put it in John's gospel referring back to Psalms. Why? Because the New Testament is (to some extent) a commentary on the Hebrew Bible, whereas the reverse is not true (the Hebrew Bible never refers to the New Testament). There are often two possible ways of reading a Psalm: In its original context, and  As interpreted by the New Testament writers. This is quite important, as the Hebrew Bible belongs to two faith communities, the Jews and the Christians. (Muslims too, to some extent, though they refer to the Torah and the Psalms only). If we translate the Bible in such a way that it onl...

The Spirit of the Lord is on me...  "... because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour." Isa 61.1-2; Luke 4.18-19 The passage in Luke is often given the title: ‘Jesus rejected at Nazareth.’ That is part of it. It reinforces Jesus’ identity as a prophet – just at those before him were rejected (e.g. Elijah, the first prophet, v26), so will Jesus. It ought, perhaps, to be entitled ‘Jesus’ Manifesto’. This has more of a focus on what Jesus actually says (rather than the hometown’s rejection of him). Jesus 'owns' the Isaiah quote by claiming that it is fulfilled today (their today), in a region inhabited by Judeans, in his home town. So what do we notice about Jesus’ manifesto (quote is from Isa 61:1-2)? The Good News Jesus is proclaiming is: A great example of integral mission (ministry to ...

In Ephesians 2:11-22, Paul mentions the dividing wall of hostility, that is the wall that used to divide Jews and Gentiles: 'Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and pe...

Outcome Harvesting is a way to find concrete data on actual changes that have taken place within a community. From a Scripture engagement perspective this might be an investigation of changes that have taken place in peoples' lives (transformation) as the result of a project being in place and/or products being produced and programmes being implemented. So, let's imagine an actual project. There have been two 'wings' to this project. The first is the Bible translation 'wing', producing products like Scripture portions (in both print and audio format, and they have a Bible app too). The second is the Oral Bible Storying 'wing' that has also produced products (audio recordings of stories) but is mainly a programme. The question is, what impact has this project had, overall? The usual procedure is to train local workers to interview people, using participatory methods, to find out how much they have engaged with Scripture as the result of this project. The...

I was just in a presentation,* and the presenter shared a slide about the Scripture engagement (SE) impact chain, which I thought I'd pass onto you fine folks! Here it is: The point is, to have community transformation, you need to have individual transformation. To have individual transformation you need eyes and ears either reading or listening to Scripture. To have eyes and ears reading and listening you need people being reached with those materials in print or audio format (or video, which combines both). To have those materials you need to develop them in the first place. That's the SE impact chain, in a nutshell! Now, the clever amongst you will have spotted that you can't just produce materials, therefore. Neither can you just produce materials and distribute them, as that's only two steps along the SE impact chain. To have community transformation you need to make sure the whole chain is working as it should. As the picture of legs on the side shows, that means...

 I have heard many objections to the hard work of Bible translation over the years. Here are some of them: Just teach everyone English and give them an English Bible to read (underlying assumption: most people in the world either speak English or want to learn it) It's all been done already (this is just based on a lack of knowledge of how many languages there are) Translate the ‘original’ King James (assumption: the King James is the first ever Bible) Work only in cities (assumption: this is the strategy Paul adopted, and if it's good enough for Paul it's good enough for us) Languages are dying out anyway (assumption: by the time you translate the Bible into a given language, there won't be any speakers of that language left) It's all too much effort, the funds could better be spent improving people's lives (assumption: people don't need the Bible as much as they need sanitation etc.) Ethnos in Revelation 7:9 refers to Gentiles, not people groups We shouldn...