MEETING GOD

HILARY HAGUE | National Director, SUNZ

Faith was new to sixteen-year-old Nathaniel and he was excited by what God was doing in his life, so he decided to paint something over the graffiti he had left on the local dairy. This time with permission! He wanted everyone to see what God had been saying to him.

He painted: Speak the truth even if your voice shakes.

Speaking out truth had been a challenge to Nathaniel. He had found it hard to tell his friends about the changes that had happened in his life, and even harder to tell them he wanted to live differently. But Nathaniel had been reading his Bible and he was in the process of discovering that as he did, his life was changing.

Like Nathaniel, our lives can be changed by reading the Bible. The question is: What helps us read the Bible so that this can happen for us?

It helps if we can recognise that reading the Bible is about far more than just reading

the words and far more than just reading a book. That’s why in SUNZ we don’t talk so much about ‘reading’ the Bible as ‘engaging’ with it. Bible engagement is much fuller than simply reading. It’s about meeting God in the Bible’s pages. Eugene Peterson says ‘When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.’ Bible engagement is an exciting journey so let’s be open to the life-changing possibilities God sets before us as we step forward into all God has for us.*

Let’s be saturated in prayer

Prayer breathes life into the words we read as the Holy Spirit opens our hearts to God and helps us to hear Him speaking to us. Bible engagement cannot be separated from prayer and we benefit from the richness of meditating on God’s word as well as reading it.

Let’s deepen our relationship

Bible engagement is about relationship. All our Bible engagement is grounded in our relatedness to God as His children, and our relationships with others around us. We do not want to read the Bible simply to collect information about God. Rather, we want to meet with him. We want to come to know him more and more as someone who cares about us individually and personally. We want to enjoy the relationship of love and forgiveness and restoration — because this is the purpose for which God has revealed Himself in the Bible.

Let’s draw on our communities

As we sit and learn and discuss and pray together, our understanding is enriched by listening to the insights of others. And of course, God gives special gifts and skills to some people so that they can interpret the Bible in ways that stretch and strengthen us. The whole church can benefit from these people — whether they are alive and present with us now, or lived in previous generations.

Let’s respect the integrity of the Bible

The Bible is the story which gives meaning to all of life, and by which all of life must be lived. That means engaging with the Bible is also about looking out for the big picture of God’s dealings with the people he loves from creation to new creation. It means noticing how individual verses fit within this large context so that we understand what they really mean. And of course, the Bible contains different literary forms (genres) and so seeing how God communicates differently from one form to another is important too.

Let’s open it for life

Meeting God through His word will always have an impact on our lives as we immerse ourselves in what God has to say to us and grow in our capacity to worship and be shaped by him. He speaks to us as we live out our love for Him in holy lives and enlarge our sense of participation in His mission. Back in the day, Humphrey Babbage, a previous National Director here in SUNZ, summed it all up when he said we want to open the Bible in life-changing ways.

Maybe, like Nathaniel, we are starting out with God, or maybe we are well on our journey. Whichever is the case for us, the important thing is that meeting God is our desire and our prayer as we engage with the Bible. This is what we want to establish in our own lives and this is what we want to pass on to future generations of children and young people.

* These pointers come from Scripture Union’s Hermeneutical Principles. Hermeneutics is a fancy word for working out what the Bible says and what it means. The way we engage with the Bible is very important for us here in SUNZ so if you would like a copy of our hermeneutical principles let us know.

HOW ARE YOU GOING WITH BIBLE ENGAGEMENT?

Ask yourself these questions: ¼ How am I engaging with the Bible prayerfully?

¼ How am I engaging with the Bible relationally?

¼ How am I drawing upon the community of faith to help me?

¼ How am I valuing the integrity of the

Bible as I read?

¼ How am I allowing the Bible to impact my life and the way I live?

OPEN THE BIBLE

PRAYERFULLY RELATIONALLY IN COMMUNITY WITH INTEGRITY OF SCRIPTURE AS A WHOLE • AS IT IS WRITTEN AS IT IS ENCOUNTERED • LOOKING FOR CHRIST

FOR LIFE

BIBLE ENGAGEMENT THE WAY

sunz He rama tau kupu ki oku waewae - -

ENGAGE:

Daily Bible Reading App

"Engage - bicultural aspect included Daily Audio Bible Reading New audio, readings and questions are posted in the app each day. Use this to support your personal Bible study or even use this together as a group or family. Available in Maori As well as English, all the daily readings and scriptures are available in Te Reo Maori. Download audio readings You can download all the bible readings in the app so The whole Bible in an app While you may have a Bible app on your device you can listen to them offline if you're on the go. already, you can access the Bible without the need to leave your audio bible reading for the day.