A long time coming
My new book, Day by Day, calls itself A Journey Through the Bible, and when some people see the depth of it, they wonder how long it took to put together.
More than 25 years, actually – not in continuous writing, of course, but in a couple of spurts and gasps over three distinct iterations.
The first iteration was in 1999, when I was pastor of what is now Crossroads United Methodist Church, in Lansing, Kansas. I called it Testaments, and I created it as a one-year study of the Bible.
In fact, a hardy group of parishioners soldiered with me through the study over a year’s time. I don’t remember who all the participants were, only that at least four have now gone on to glory.
I offered it as an alternative to Disciple Bible Study, which is more intensive and takes a very long time to get through the whole Bible. Testaments also was cheaper, only $5 per copy, basically the cost of copying and binding it.
It was 52 pages long. I supplemented it with weekly doses of commentary and discussion questions. It was a lot of work, but I was appointed three-quarters time at Lansing, so I had some time for extras.
When we were done with it (and pretty much exhausted, as I recall), I set it aside and worked on other projects.
One of those extras was the script for The Victory of God, a stage production based on the book of Revelation that we put on in 2002. I’ve since expanded that into a book as well, though I’ve discovered that publishers shy away from books that don’t follow the misleading “end times” claims of dispensationalism.
More than 20 years after Testaments, I was looking for a long-term Bible study for my congregation in Edgerton, Kansas. I was formally retired by now but still working half-time. I gave Testaments a thorough work-over and came up with a new title, Connections.
The timing was bad, though. The pandemic made a mash of our plans for group study. Connections never had much opportunity to connect.
But I really liked the way I’d revised it, so I thought I would expand my revision and clean it up even more. I discovered that Cokesbury already sold a Bible study called Connections, so I went in search of a new title.
Day by Day was such a natural fit that I figured that title would also be taken, but it really wasn’t, so I ran with it.
Connections wasn’t bad, just a little slapdash here and there. Day by Day is a lot better. Now that I see it in print, of course, I see some things I wish I’d expanded even more, and a couple of things I might have done without.
But overall I’m happy with it. I even recommend it to you if you’re looking for a daily study that will challenge you to grow in your faith and really think about what you’re reading without some of the cliches we’ve come to associate with Bible study.
As I’ve explained here before, in this study we try to move beyond the assumptions and clichés of pop religion and really try to take the text on its own terms rather than on our terms.
Likely I have not always been successful in that endeavor, but trying to set aside ourselves and open ourselves to the ministry of the Holy Spirit is what Bible study is essentially all about.