Have you ever read something in the Bible and thought, “Wait! What!?!”
Whether we embrace the Bible as a sacred text or are skeptical and suspicious of its benefit and inspiration, we have likely had to deal with stories and claims that we’re not sure how to deal with. In the book, How (Not) to Read the Bible, author Dan Kimball attempts to provide tools and techniques for engaging with these difficult texts. We expect that reading this book will be informative and encouraging for many.
New Hope Community Church in Aptos, CA will be hosting small groups in the Spring of 2022 that will be working through this study together. You are welcome to join one these small groups or start your own.
You will have everything you need to study this material by purchasing or borrowing the book and study guide. Read along at your own pace.
With the book, study guide, and the video lessons (free access with study guide), you will have everything you need for your small group.
You are welcome to join with us as we learn together and wrestle with these questions and ideas.
Each week we will be discussing a section from the book. Reading the section in advance will help prepare you for the week’s discussion, but is not mandatory.
When we meet, we will be working through a section of the study guide (starting in week 2). We will watch the video-based teaching and then discuss the questions from the study guide.
Each week the small group will meet and discuss a section from the book, How (Not) to Read the Bible by Dan Kimball. Video-based lessons will begin on week 2.
“You can be a thinking intelligent Christian and one hundred percent believe in the trustworthiness and inspiration of the Bible.” – Dan Kimball
“Of course, it’s wonderful to think God has plans for us to prosper. But we have to be careful we aren’t taking Bible verses and applying a promise to us that God didn’t make to us.” – Dan Kimball
“These restrictions were common ways of identifying your ethnicity and religious affiliation.” – Dan Kimball
“It is wicked the way women were viewed as property.” – Dan Kimball
“Notice that God’s focus is to communicate that he has purpose and design and is the Creator of all that exists.” – Dan Kimball
“…my prayer has been that Christians reading this would remember the uniqueness of Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life and would live their lives as if this is really true.” – Dan Kimball
“My encouragement to you is to avoid forming your picture of God from bits of stories or Bible verses taken out of context without seeing the whole story.” – Dan Kimball
As Pastor Dan Kimball closed out this book, he described his desires for us a reader. One key desire is that whether or not we agree with his conclusions about the difficult subjects we would not throw the Bible aside too quickly.
Interested in joining a small group hosted by New Hope Community Church in Aptos, CA?
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