A Program for Reading the Bible
What is the Book of Faith?
The Book of Faith is an initiative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Book of Faith initiative invites the whole church to become more fluent in the first language of faith, the language of Scripture, in order that we might live into our calling as a people renewed, enlivened, and empowered by the Word.
The Bible is a book of faith
The Bible is the written Word of God that creates and nurtures faith through the work of the Holy Spirit and points us to Christ, the living Word and center of our faith. The Bible invites us into a living rela-tionship with God, making demands on our lives and promising us life in Christ. The Bible tells the stories of people living out their faith over the centuries and, through its demands and promises, forms us as people of faith.
The language of Scripture is our first language of faith
The Bible teaches us about God, about the world, and about ourselves. We become renewed, enlivened, and empowered as the language of Scripture forms our hearts, our minds, our community conversation, and our commitments.
We have a calling as the people of God
Part of our calling is to know, hear, share, and be rooted in Scripture. We are renewed, enlivened, and empowered by the Word. As we live into our calling as people who are formed by Scripture, we be-come renewed in our faith, enlivened through the Spirit, and empowered through the cross of Christ to serveGod and neighbor.
Over the coming months, we will have an opportunity to discuss a number of ways that we can deepen our re-lationship with the Scriptures here at Resurrection. But as an initial step, I invite you to join me and many other members of our SW Minnesota Synod of the ELCA by committing yourself to read or listen to the Gos-pels of the New Testament over the next 12 months.
Each month, we will read one of the Gospels. This means throughout the year, we will journey through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John three times. As we do, we will come to better understand Jesus and his ministry. We will also be challenged and comforted as God’s people.
We began with Matthew in July, 2008. We will be using other New Testament books to fill out the months. Some of you may find that it fits better for you to listen to the Bible, than to read. If that is the case for you, I encourage you to find a tape or CD version of the Bible to use for this year with the Gospels.
May God bless you as you open the Scriptures.
Pastor Dwaine