Series 2 - Wells of Truth: The Bible

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Series Two: THE BIBLE

Everybody has an opinion about the Bible! But few people have ever learned to read it well.

We created this series to help you understand the Bible. We begin with a few short episodes that answer frequently asked questions and challenges, like where the actual texts of the Bible came from and what about the troubling material we sometimes find in it.

Then the rest of the series is designed to help you read the Bible itself. We want you to be able to understand what you’re reading. Even more, we want to help you encounter God in its pages, and grow in your love for God and other people.

Full Digital Discussion Guide

Register for UALC's Wells of Truth: The Bible Education Hour

Beginning January 12, 2025

5:00-6:30 pm

A 6-week class during Education Hour on Sundays, January 12 through February 16 at the Mill Run Campus. Steve Turnbull will lead the class in learning to better read and understand the Bible.

PART 1: UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE BIBLE IS

Session One

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Introduction & What is the Bible? Often we read scripture hoping to find clear direction on how to live our lives and instead find things that can leave us confused. Lets learn how to read the Bible in a way that will allow the text to be experienced anew.

Session Three

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How Did the Bible Get to Us?

The Bibles we read today are actually first-hand translations based on ancient manuscript copies that originate from a time period unprecedentedly close to the events they describe.

Session Two

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How Did These Books Become the Bible? In the first video of this series, we learned about the story that holds the whole Bible together. But you might wonder, how did these 66 books get to be the Bible? Who decided that and can we trust the story it tells?

Session Four

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Isn’t the Bible Full of Problems? The Bible can appear to be full of problems. Even faithful believers sometimes struggle with portions of their sacred scriptures. It doesn’t help anyone if we ignore the good and hard questions that many people ask.

PART 2: READING THE BIBLE, “THEN AND THERE”

Session Five

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Getting Ready to Read. Lets get ahold of a Bible, pray, and perhaps select a few good tools to help you read. Now its time to choose what you’ll read. There are many possible ways to approach it, but the main thing is to just get started reading.

Session Seven

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Reading the Details. The next step in reading the Bible well is to notice and investigate the details, words, and images of the passage you’re reading. In this video, we will focus on a few major items, and point to some examples for how you could do more if you want to.

Session Nine

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Literary Context. When we take individual verses or passages out of context, we can easily distort their meaning. In this video you will learn about literary context, or book context: how to read a passage in the context of the book it’s in.

Session Six

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Flow & Shape. In these next videos we'll learn some skills to help you read the Bible carefully, starting withe the flow and shape of the passage. When we see how different parts of a passage are arranged in relationship to each other, it can help us understand what those individual pieces mean.

Session Eight

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Genre. Genre is a way we categorize and interpret content. Genre is critically important to understanding something correctly. We often forget this when it comes to the Bible. Yet the Bible is comprised of many different genres of and we need to pay attention to that variety.

Session Ten

Historical Context. One of the things that can make the Bible hard to read is that it was written in a time so different from our own. However, learning about the world as it was then and there helps us think more concretely about the Bible in the real world we live in, here and now.

PART 3: READING THE BIBLE, “HERE AND NOW”

Session Eleven

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Keeping the Whole Bible in Mind. We’ve learned a lot about reading a passage carefully in its own context, then and there. Now that we’re ready to start thinking about what it means for us, in our context here and now. We also need to see each passage we read as part of the whole Bible.

Session Thirteen

Praying Through Scripture. The Bible is not an end in itself. It was written to help us know and love God and to transmit God’s word to us and our communities. These aren’t just inert words written thousands of years ago. They’re living words through which the Spirit of God continues to speak to us now. Prayer connects study of the Bible to our souls.

Session Twelve

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What About the Seeming Contradictions? In the Gospels, we often find multiple stories about the same event in different books, told slightly differently. You might wonder if these stories contradict. The versions together help us see more of Jesus more richly than one account could.

Session Fourteen

Responding Faithfully. We’ve read, studied, and prayed about the Bible. Now let’s allow ourselves to wonder, “Now what do we do?” Some call this the “application” step, where we are responsible for self-driven utilization of insights. Instead, let’s approach this action-stage with the question: “What is a faithful response to God now?”

PART 4: PRACTICE READING THE BIBLE WELL

Session Fifteen

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Putting it All Together: Practice in Ezekiel 34. This is a training video to help you take all the things that you’ve learned and practice them together. We’re going to read a passage step by step together using the skills that we’ve learned in the rest of this series.

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