We are working on a video series to help you better connect to the world of the Bible! Each video will include an episode guide containing notes, discussion questions, and more. Visit the Video Series page to see what’s available and upcoming.
Transcript
⬤Brian: At the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, you can gaze across the watery straights to see the Upper Peninsula. But you can’t make much of anything out except for some distant trees.
⬤Marcia: For a long time, that’s what the Bible felt like to us. It was distant and unclear from our vantage point, thousands of miles and years away from its origins. How could we possibly understand it?
⬤Brian: The solution to easily crossing to the Upper Peninsula came in 1957 with the opening of the “Mighty Mac”: the Mackinac Bridge. This five mile long suspension bridge finally connected the two peninsulas together.
⬤Marcia: How do we connect to the distant world of the Bible?
⬤Brian: We tend to open out Bibles and ask, “what does this mean for me?” But it wasn’t written to us. First, we must determine what it meant to them, the original audience in its original setting. Then we can apply it to us. If we don’t consciously work to read it through their eyes, we’ll tend to read through our own time, culture, and place.
⬤Marcia: But how do we know what it meant to them?
⬤Brian: Shalom! I’m Brian!
⬤Marcia: And I’m Marcia!
⬤Brian: We’re building Bridges To The Bible, a brand-new web series to help us connect the Biblical world to our world. Just like it takes time to construct physical bridges, it’s going to take us some time to build these virtual bridges as well.
⬤Marcia: We’re going to do this using four main bridges: the cultural, geographical, historical, and linguistic.
⬤Brian: We’re kicking it off this fall with a video series on the communal nature of Biblical culture. We hope that you’ll join us as we cross this “bridge” to the Bible. SHALOM!
♬♫♬ ♪