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Reading Scripture: The Big Picture

An introductory course in Scripture should have as its primary outcome making readers alert to the importance of words and their grammatical relationship with other words set within a composition that tells a story, sings a lyric, makes an argument, or envisions a future with God. The Bible is a sacred text, inspired by God’s Spirit for Christian formation. This belief alone should motivate the most careful study of the biblical text. Full reading and audio »

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“Eden and East of Eden”: Genesis 2:4–3:24

Genesis 2:4 is the first segment in Genesis introduced by the tôledôt-formula. Here God engages the created order in a new way. Still, this episode is organically connected to the first one, as seen in the way the phrase “the heavens and the earth” in 2:4a is reversed (“the earth and the heavens”) in 2:4b Full reading and audio …

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“The Created Order”: Genesis 1:1-2:3

You and I had a beginning (obviously!). Everyone had a beginning. A song from the musical The Sound of Music tells us delightfully that the beginning is “a very good place to start.” Scripture, too, begins at the beginning. Full reading and audio …

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“Introduction to Scripture”

Frank Spina, SPU professor of Old Testament and biblical theology, introduces the Old Testament as “the only Scriptures Jesus and his earliest followers recognized and appealed to as God’s authoritative word.” Full reading and audio …