The transformation started nearly 500 years ago, when we changed the way the Bible looks. Beginning with the Geneva Bible in the 1550s our sacred writings were redesigned to make them easier to reference. The chapter numbering system we know had been introduced 300 years earlier, but it was the introduction of numbered verses in Reformation-era Bibles that decisively changed the game.

Of course, the Bible didn’t start out looking anything like a reference book. In fact, the Bible was heard long before it was seen at all. The collection of writings we know as the Scriptures was born in an oral culture—people gathering together and sharing stories and songs, proverbs and prophecies.

Further, it’s clear from the Scriptures themselves that God’s ancient people saw these sacred words as coming together to tell a story about God, the world, and God’s great plan for renewal and life. They saw themselves as living out this same story in their own time and place. They knew their lives were meant to contribute to where the story was going.

Snacking on Scripture

But today, we’ve made all this much harder to discern. We’ve hidden the different kinds of writing in the Bible, covering them over with a growing list of additives—numbers, yes, but also footnotes, cross-references, section headings, call-outs, double columns, and more.

Our Bibles have become very complicated things.

These days it’s hard to see the songs as songs, to read the letters as letters, and sometimes to recognize the parallel lines of the poetry. It’s become challenging to follow the story.

The new format of the modern Bible led us into new practices. Proof-texting. Looking up answers for topical questions and finding them in little bits taken out of context. Verse-of-the-day Scripture vitamins. We’ve ended up with Bible snacking rather than Bible feasting.

Does it matter?

But isn’t it all good? Does it really matter how we read our Bibles?

That depends.

Do we think it makes a difference that God chose to give us this revelation as whole books—a rich variety of different kinds of writing?

Do we believe God knew what he was doing in presenting the Bible as a great story of the renewal of the world?

That is, does it matter that we receive the Bible as the kind of book that God inspired?

If the answer to these questions is “Yes,” then it’s time to change some things.

So … what if we were to enter a new era of Bible reading? What if we were to rediscover a naturally formatted Bible that invited us to both see and experience the different kinds of writing in the Bible? What if we came to understand the narrative of the Bible in a deep way, and came to see our own lives as making sense only within that story?

What if, in other words, we were to once again read the Bible as the story it is, rather than simply using it like a reference book?

What if we regularly read the Bible at length and in depth?

What if we understood how to interpret the different literary forms of the Bible?

What if we recognized the Bible’s authority as a narrative authority, not an answer-book authority?

What if we always, always, always read the Bible through the Jesus lens? What if we saw Jesus himself as the preeminent Word of God, the clearest revelation of who God is and what he’s up to?

What would happen if we did all this?

The Scriptures God gave us are living and active. They have agency in the world. God sent them to us as part of his mission—to tell his story and to transform the lives of people. But we have the ability to hinder that mission if we don’t do right by the Bible. It’s time we do the Bible justice.

Welcome to a whole new world of Bible engagement.

If you’d like to have a fresh experience of the Bible in your community, check out biblica.com/cbe.