Embarking

One of the writers I love to read is Malcolm Muggeridge.  I’m not sure why, but his combination of journalism, seeking after God, his transformation to Christ, his keen political eye, and his incredible experiences make for interesting reading that – for me – leads to worthwhile pondering.  Here is a quote from the introduction to The Third Testament, which was original a TV series, I think for the BBC.

Considering [Saint Augustine, Blaise Pascal, William Blake, Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Dietrich Bonhoeffer] as a group, it became clear to me that, although they were all quintessentially men of their time, they had a special role in common, which was none other than to relate their time to eternity. This has to be done every so often; otherwise, when the lure of self-sufficiency proves too strong, or despair too overwhelming, we forget that men need to be called back to God to rediscover humility and with it, hope… Between the fantasies of the ego and the truth of love, between the darkness of the will and the light of the imagination, there will always be the need for a bridge and a prophetic voice calling on us to cross it.

Those are the kinds of sentences I long for in books I read today, and can’t seem to find that often. I find the challenge of a phrase like “relate their time to eternity” throws me off balance for awhile and makes me think deeply about my own life and how my actions, words, and thoughts relate to the eternity that God has set before.  What conviction comes when you read a phrase like, and realize that the lure of self-sufficiency has grown strong, or maybe said differently, the lure of the illusion of self-sufficiency.  How many times have we seen throughout history those who have had to discover or rediscover humility?  How many times have we seen the mighty fall to their own failures, or implosion into depression because of unrealized, wrong-headed hopes and dreams?  How true it is that “between the fantasies of the ego and the truth of love, between the darkness of the will and the light of the imagination” we do need a bridge or otherwise we fall headlong into a chasm of self-destruction of our own digging.

Hope.  The prophetic voice calling. The truth of love. The light of the imagination. The rediscovery of humility, reliance, and the power and sufficiency of our God.  These things are worth pondering.

Z

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Last week I read And: The Gathered and Scattered Church by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, and am finally blogging a few of my thoughts.

I had heard of this book initially after a few friends were at Exponential this year.  I couldn’t go because I’d just been at the Q Conference in Chicago.  However, I probably should have been there because I’m in the throes of planting Fair Haven’s first multi-site right now called South Harbor Church (a week and a half from the first preview, with launch on 10.10.10.), but I couldn’t give up the Q experience.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, and will recommend it to several people – particularly certain chapters.  Let me begin with a critique, and end with some things I liked.

The premise of the book is basically to stop fighting over different models of the church and honor one another in our differences but seek to use whatever models work in seeking the kingdom.  The book talks often of mega and mini churches, and of missional and attractional.  These are important dichotomies on the one hand – and ones I’ve struggled with myself.  On the other hand, it’s too easy a division to hang a hat on and there are deeper issues than the book goes into.  Ultimately, I love title, but think the book got into too much about Adullam (Halter and Smay’s church), and only scratched the surface of these deeply ecclesiological issues of our time.

“And” does a good job of articulating the need for working together through various models with the same ends in mind, but in my estimation never gets to some of the deeper issues about how much a model influences the end goals.  For instance, Halter does a good job talking about moving people out of consumerism and into transformation and into dying to oneself for Christ.  He nails the issue that disciples are not consumers (chapter 3), but then never really deals with models of doing church these days that promote consumerism of a Christian sort.  In an effort to be unifying, Halter sometimes borders on not being critical enough where healthy critique is necessary.  Other times, though he says that both types of models are helpful, but then tends to tip towards favoring the missional impulse.  One question that would be more helpful to me would be around how the mega church can remain missional enough to be Christian and how does the missional church become attractional enough to stay alive and have an influence beyond a small group.  Overall, I think he tries to be balanced between multiple models, but speaks only out of the Adullum experience.  It would’ve been nice to see a balanced approach in this book with multiple models all expressing the unifying aspects of the gathered and scattered church.

Where “And” does hit the nail on the head in terms of what’s necessary for both the scattered and gathered, missional and attractional, mega and mini is the incarnational community.  Here is how it’s put on page 66:

“Whether you’re starting from scratch and moving down the missional flow or starting from an existing structure and moving up, you’ll notice that the center of the process is ‘incarnational community.’”

By incarnational community, they mean here bands of people with the missional heart of God integrating their lives with those who don’t know Him and are doing something intentional about.  Simplistic, yes, but true none-the-less.  Too many churches lose the core mission of God to reach his people far and wide and lose their very nature as church altogether.

For me, chapter 4, “Spiritual Formation for Missional Churches” was the best chapter in the book.   This chapter really deals with how to move someone from being far from God through the discipleship and growth process to the place of mobilization in ministry (in their words from Observance to Preparation to Participation to Partnership).  This is such a key issue, and one that churches tend not to do well.  We call it a “people pathway” or a “people process” – but who wants processed people!  However, churches today desperately need a pathway of discipleship that includes evangelism, grounds people in the basics, and moves them towards influential leadership in the use of their gifts.  With studies like Reveal and churches realizing their lack of depth, discipleship pathways are getting popular.  Chapter 4 is all about how to go about that, focusing on the transitions in stages, and developing a clear pathway.  I like it. This chapter is one that I will recommend several people read.

Chapter 5 is also very helpful in describing the difference between modalities (structures focused on caring for those already in the church) and sodalities (those that push toward those on the outside).  This is a helpful chapter, finding its roots in the missiology of Ralph Winter.  This is where the book gets closer to living up to its name.  I think if the book had moved this chapter earlier (after the biblical foundation of Chapter 1) and then built upon it, dealing with the centripetal and centrifugal forces necessary for the gathered and scattered church to remain in balance, it would’ve felt more balanced and helpful.  This chapter is one that I will recommend several people read (like church planting interns, student and children’s ministries staff, seminarians, etc.)

I mentioned in an earlier post on the book “Multi-Site Road Trip” that I had the opportunity to meet Dave and Jon Ferguson several years back.  I remember meeting with them, and Dave Dummit, as they were considering a site in Brighton, Michigan.  They had graciously met with Dan Reeves and myself to share their wisdom then on multi-site and the Big Idea in a time when very few people were talking about it.  I later was able to hear from them again at Third Reformed in Kalamazoo (now CenterPoint), and also had a chance to visit the Big Yellow Box and bring some friends along while I was in Chicago back in 2005.  What’s been really cool is to see these guys stay so focused on the mission that God called them to long ago to reach the city of Chicago, and to do it consistently and yet creatively.  So much has changed in their movement in terms of the creative energy and leadership they’ve brought to multi-site, and yet in some ways, so little has changed.  The heart of the message to see people find their way back to God is consistent, persistent, and powerful.

All that to say that I’ve just finished reading Exponential:  How you and your friends can start a missional movement.

Z

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This was a fabulous read for me.  First, something personal.  I’m embarking right now on Fair Haven Ministries’ first site called South Harbor Church that will launch on 10.10.10 in Byron Township in south Grand Rapids, Michigan(along with many others in the 10.10.10 Initiative).   In fact, this morning I’m headed to hand out free cookies and lemonade at a local Little League to meet people and learn about the community.  Anyway, this book right now for me is a God-send in the sense that it affirms so many things that God is doing out of our church right now and also gives incredibly practical handles for being lead by Jesus, leading and reproducing leaders, tribes, communities, and movements.  What I love about how Dave and Jon wrote the book, was that it’s written with deeply biblical values, immensely practical, tested, and proven in the trenches of missional multi-siting.  I also love the real-life stories of real people and real churches.  The story of Community Christian (and all it’s sites) and many of its leaders is woven throughout the pages and gives you a sense of the messy reality of a true movement as well as the powerful stories. This isn’t just ideas… it’s the real deal.

For the past 5 years, a couple of my responsibilities as a spiritual formation pastor at Fair Haven have been leadership development and small groups.  I’ve been to many conferences and read many books and tried to implement many theories and ideas in both of these areas.  What’s awesome in this book as well to see is how small group life really works in this church, and especially how the leadership development pathway is integrated with not only small groups, but also with missional communities and in the raising up of artists.

This is probably one of the best books I’ve read on the practical side of the church multiplication movement.  It’s a must read for any church that is serious about multiplying leaders, churches, sites, disciples, and influence.   This summer, we took on 4 interns in church planting and we also have an on-site venue with a Campus Pastor.  We just talked this past week about all of them reading this, and I hope we can make that a reality.

Here are a couple of great tid-bits you’ll find:

• Real practical help on the leadership development people pathway and the importance of apprenticeship.
• Great illustrations of vision and strategy on napkins!
• A wonderful passage on scripture reading and journaling and how it affects leadership and vision for Dave Ferguson (see my recent post on YouVersion and LifeJournals)
• A great chapter on coaching, its importance in leadership development, and practical questions and a format for coaching.
• Encouragement that you, too, can really be used by God to multiply disciples, leaders, teams, sites, and churches.
• A focus not just on church growth, but on being missional.
• Much more.

Loved the book, and look forward to re-reading it and reviewing it with more care for some direct implementation in our new site.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Z

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When I was a kid, like many others, I read with fascination the Chronicles of Narnia and was transported by CS Lewis to this magical parallel universe where good and evil collided, where Aslan ruled, and where normal children were princes and heroes.  My 7 year old son is now reading the Chronicles of Narnia as well, and is on the Last Battle.

I asked him to read the recent Zondervan book, “The Aedyn Chronicles: The Chosen Ones” by Alister McGrath.  I had personally read it not long ago myself and was reminded of Lewis and his imaginative writing.  Here is what Isaac wrote about it (in his own words and spelling):

I liked how the pages look like they are ripped.  I thought I ripped it for a second!  I like how you really made it feel like you were there in real life!  Your pages really look detailed.  I like the first chapter.  Well, I guss the aigtheenth.  What I really liked how it’s so long.  I’m mostly always bored but I wasn’t bored for a whole week because of that book.  PS. this is a blog.

I told him I wanted to blog about what he thought of the book.  Since he took a break after The Silver Chair to read this, I thought it would be good to ask him about his comparison to Narnia.  He said, “I mostly like both of them.”  Then he also said, “I really liked how Lucy had that screaming power.  But I wish she could have told her bother, so he could’ve helped her.  If Lucy was my sister, I would have wanted to help.”  He also really loved the special bows and arrows, which he mentioned to me multiple times, which explains why he liked the eighteenth chapter – which was the  archery training for battle.  He liked how it was “a mystery inside a mystery”, which he said he was trying to “figure if they were going to get the Lords” and “are they gonna get the weapons?”

Here’s a quick run-down of my own assessment:

• The book seems to be a nod to Lewis in mimicking some of his style and what he was trying to accomplish with the Narnia series.
• The book has many biblical and Christian metaphors and McGrath’s Christianity seeps through the pages in many ways.
• There is definitely a polemic going on in the subtext regarding the relationship between science and spirituality with respect to truth.  This is true of McGrath in general as a scientist and former atheist turn Christian.

Is McGrath trying to create a new mythology with a Christian subtext for a new generation?  Is he giving us what Lewis gave to his generation – a former Oxford, now King’s College professor giving us a fictional entry into the biblical world?  Is this the precursor to a new imaginative apologetic?  Hard to say, and filling Lewis’ shoes is harder still.

I appreciate McGrath a great deal, and was deeply inspired this past year by his Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology, his presentations at the Q Conference, and his debates with modern popular atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins.    McGrath has much work ahead of him, and my hope is that he will continue to bring us new work that is deeply inspired, deeply thoughtful, and deeply challenging to contemporary culture.

I plan on reading it again, so does my son, and my 10 year old daughter is next when she finishes her current book.

That’s not exactly how he phrases it, but James Davison Hunter in his recent book To Change the World: Irony, Tragedy, and The Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World questions the possibility of Christians really changing the world through intention.   It’s not nearly that simple, particularly for this brilliant sociologist, but Hunter argues – among other things – that changing the world is a long, complicated process involving cultural elites and centers of power, particularly in politics, that run contrary to the biblical vision given to us by Jesus.  I’ve been reading this book over the past couple months and have finally brought it to conclusion, although I think I’ll read it again.  In a nutshell, Hunter challenges the assumption that aggregated individuals through grassroots efforts can make any lasting or significant change in culture, particularly without wielding the very power of coercion that Christianity rejects.

I think Andy Crouch from the Christian Vision Project sums it up well when he says, “The irony is that there is no phrase more beloved to a certain kind of Christian than ‘to change the world.’ But in Hunter’s persuasive account, the strategies those very same Christians have pursued are, by themselves, woefully incapable of changing the world…”  ”…the very idea of ‘changing the world’ is rooted in a quest for dominance that fundamentally misunderstands the Christian gospel and the way of Jesus.”

Hunter goes on to critique the Christian Right (conservatives), The Christian Left (liberals or mainliners), and what he calls the “Neo-Anabaptists” made up of folks like Hauerwas, Yoder, Claiborne, and the New Monastics.  In this critique, Hunter betrays his philosophical (or sociological?) postmodernism in agreement with the likes of Foucault, Nietzsche, and others about language, power, and the coercive nature of culture creation.

There are several people who engage Hunter’s work, not the least of which are Andy Crouch and Chuck Colsen (see the posts below) who ask some great questions.  What I found interesting was that nowhere (I’m sure it’s out there somewhere) have I yet seen someone challenge the philological, linguistic, postmodern philosophical assumptions of Hunter’s work.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually agree with Hunter on these points about power and cultural transformation, but he doesn’t fully tip his hands about the philosophical foundations of those ideas, choosing instead to shroud them more spiritually in the non-coercive, non-violent leadership of Jesus.  I happen to think these two things are very compatible, but haven’t seen much work done to connect the two (which I’d love to do if I had the time).  Hunter does his sociological work as a Christian within a postmodern philosophical framework, but only acknowledges his indebtedness to the likes of Foucault at a cursory level hidden in the endnotes (yes, some of us do read them, cf. endnote 1, Chapter 4, Part I) and to Nietzshe with a short explication ofressentiment from Nietzsche and its relationship to Christianity in Chapter 7 of Part II.  Generally I find most Christians merely lambasting postmodern thought and philosophy without a) really understanding some of the seminal thoughts, b) seeing the ability to be a Christian and acknowledge some of these realities, or c) understanding how deeply these ideas affect issues of hermeneutics, missions, and even contextualization.

Don’t get me wrong, there are serious problems with postmodern philosophy, postmodernity as a cultural project, unthoughtful “postmodern churches” and edgy “postmodern pastors”.  But some of the more serious questions about our embeddedness in cultures of understanding based on would help us think through contextualization in mission, understanding of  power and language might help us avoid our sometimes coercive tendencies (in marketing, preaching, the use of guilt, etc.), and a greater honesty about our presuppositions and framing stories might help us get closer to real conversation with people about basic beliefs without mere condemnation and help our evangelism.  Recently Tim Keller told a group I was a part of that we need a new approach to apologetics, and I think this is part of it.  Hunter, in my opinion, opens the door to some of these conversations in a different (and potentially less volatile) way than Brian McLaren.

So, here are a couple wrap up thoughts on Hunter’s book:

1. This is a wonderful, scholarly work on how cultural change actually functions.
2. This work requires additional study on these issues by Christians and non-Christians alike.
3. There is much more work to be done in helping Christians to wrestle with some of these underlying issues of power, language, and culture (which, honestly, postmodern philosophy is mostly about).
4. This analysis is extremely helpful in understanding many of the drawbacks of the Christian Right, Christian Left, and the Neo-Anabaptist approaches and their rooting (or not) in ressentiment (which, interestingly enough, was the subject of one of my senior seminar papers in 1994 dealing with Neitzsche and the will to power.)

Enough of that for now.  I have more to say, and if I find the time I’ll write more.  Here are some helpful articles that give some more information about the book and Crouch and Colsen’s responses.

• Executive Summary of Is There a Culture War:  A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2006 featuring Michael Cromartie, Alan Wolfe, James Hunter, and others.
• Andy Crouch’s response Hunter and I Agree on Culture Making (He just seems not to know it) in Christianity Today and How Not to Change the World in Books and Culture.  I read Crouch’s book last year, and really enjoyed it.  Crouch takes issue with Hunter’s cursory overview of his book, and having read it, I agree with Crouch.  I ran into him at the Q Conference a few weeks ago and ask him, “What did you think of Hunter’s challenge to your book,” to which he responded, “Have you read my review in Books & Culture?”  Thanks for the tip, Andy, and it was good to meet you.
• Chuck Colsen responded in his article More Than a Faithful Presence in Christianity Today.
• Interview of Hunter by Christopher Benson Faithful Presence in Christianity Today.

I recently read the new book Multi-Site Church Road Trip by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird.  After reading The Multi-Site Revolution several years back, this was a wonderful update.

6 or 7 years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Dave Ferguson for dinner at a restaurant in Brighton, Michigan where Community Christian Church was then working on a potential site.  Dan Reeves introduced me to CCC and the Ferguson brothers who were then cutting edge (and still are) in the multi-site movement.  Then, as reflected in The Multi-Site Revolution, multi-site was new, exciting, and and catalyst to new growth.  They were multi-siting in old churches and even in a housing development for the elderly.  I had a chance to hear their strategy at a small conference in Kalamazoo not long after that in which they talked about the “franchising” of churches.  Initially, that rubbed me the wrong way, but with the right spirit and for the right reasons, that idea was cheaper, more effective, and provided more accountability for “church planting” as well as more support for the planters (or campus pastors, as their usually called.)  I had a chance later to visit the Yellow Box and worship with CCC and was really impressed with their innovation, passion, and down-to-earth evangelicalism.  CCC was really my only real personal interaction with multi-siting until I began reading more about it in Leadership Network’s articles.

I now serve at a large church just about to celebrate its 50th anniversary.  We worship just under 2000 most Sundays, and for the last 5 years, myself and the other leadership have worked diligently to move our church not only towards planting, but towards being a multiplication center with church multiplication at the heartbeat of our mission.  We’ve been involved in church plants in the past, but had gotten away from that focus and got sucked into the megachurch growth movement – which is only a negative comment because of the loss of a planting focus.   Out of that focus, we’ve decided to plant 4 churches in the next 5 years through venues, sites, and plants.  A month ago, we launched our first venue on our central campus called Rock Harbor with 60% of the attendees (170-200 total worshipers) from outside the church.  We’re now looking to out first site to possibly launch in September or October.  We’re also involved in the planting of a cluster of at least 5-10 churches in central Florida that will also launch this next year.

The Multi-Site Road trip has been an awesome primer in what’s happening around the country and about the maturation of multi-siting over the past 10 or so years.   What I loved about this book was that it didn’t give a silver bullet and didn’t promote a one-size fits all approach.  In fact, exactly the opposite was true.  MSR defines multi-siting as “one church meeting in multiple locations” and identifies five basic models:

1. video venues
2. regional campuses
3. teaching teams
4. partnerships
5. low risk models

The authors give examples of all these models and show how these models actually play out in real churches, real teams, with real struggles.  It also helps the reader to see that multi-siting is not just for the large, or mega church, but that it is a strategy for growth that helps churches to reach new communities, make room for new people, or as our planting network (The Harbor Network) would say, lives into the reality that “new churches reach new people.”  It was insightful to read that multi-siting may be an evolution of church strategy not unlike the addition of a second or third service, something that will in the future be “the new norm” as the book calls it.  The book is both practical and encouraging, and is a must read for anyone either considering venues or multi-siting, as an alternative to traditional “planting,” and as a catalytic idea for a church looking to expand into the community.

I just finished reading the book Obstacles Welcome: turn adversity to advantage in business and life.  This book by Ralph de la Vega is part autobiography, part leadership history, part leadership principles, part self-help, and part personal development.   de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets has been responsible and overseen everything from the move to mobile to the proliferation of the iPhone.  The book starts out, though, with stories from de la Vega’s youth in which he emigrated to the United States without his parents through a last minute glitch at the airport.  At the age of 10, he began his life in the United States without his parents.

I really enjoyed reading Obstacles Welcome.  It was a really accessible and easy read, and de la Vega takes the complexity of managing a huge corporation and a gives simple but not simplistic look into how he does it.  I also appreciated the type of leadership de la Vegan seems to exhibit.  He appears to be a person who values people, virtue, integrity, hard work, and determination.  After reading this book, I thought to myself, “de la Vega would make a good mentor” and that is exactly what he does through this book, becoming  a personal and leadership mentor.  If you’re in a leadership position, it’s worth a read.

I’ve had about 10 books going for awhile, and I’m trying of focus on finishing one at a time. I just finished reading The New Monasticism: What it has to say to the church, “an insider’s perspective” by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. I’ve mentioned the new monasticism before, and I have a lot of respect for what they’re trying to do. The New Monasticism movement reminds me a little bit of the way George Hunger III described St. Patrick’s monastic project in the Celtic Way of Evangelism (a fabulous book, and a must read as far as I’m concerned.)  He talked about how the early missionary monks to the Celts moved into their cities and rural sprawl and created a kind of monastic island in the middle of these people.  These monastic communities had a strict rule of life, served the people in their community, offered hospitality to strangers, and sought to transform a culture from the inside out.

I really appreciate the 12 Marks of the New Monasticism.  Hartgrove gives a good basic understanding of how monastics have been a part of renewal in the church throughout various centuries.  He writes about how monastics seek not to separate from the church or become an alternative, but to bring renewal and reformation to the church by returning to some key roots such as hospitality, sharing all things in common, prayer, and serving others.  This is how Hartgrove begins, by sounding the call, “the church in America isn’t living up to what it’s supposed to be.  Somehow we’ve lost our way.”  The point of monastic movements is to remind the church of its true identity, and that’s true for the New Monastics as well.

I had a fabulous conversation with a gentleman from my church recently who’s feeling the same way.  He loves the church, and yet he feels like the church in America missing the point of the mission at so many levels by putting money and energy into too many things that are not the heart of the reasons for the church in the world on God’s mission.  In his words, “We’ve so boughten into the American dream, that we’ve forgotten what the church is supposed to be.”  Hartgrove writes about this very thing.

What’s unique about this movement is that it takes seriously the renewal of the church and the ancient practices of monasticism in a way that is both inclusive of married couples and families and is also deeply embedded within the cultures of this world, particularly urban settings.  These settings are often referred these days by many of us as “abandoned places of the empire,” referring to those places, particularly urban, that have been deeply affected by the contemporary empire’s of consumerism and progress.  I’ve appreciated everything I’ve read and heard from the many in this movement and am already seeing how they are affecting the church in dramatic ways, Shane Claiborne being one of the key players here.

The New Monastics have also, like many people I respect, been deeply influenced by John Perkins.  Years ago, I sent some students to learn from Perkins and his community, and it was a life-changing experience for many of them.  Particularly, his 3 R’s are foundational (Relocation, Redistribution, and Reconciliation) for only only the New Monastic movement, but for other renewal thinkers in the urban settings as well (ie. Christian Community Development Association).  The other thing I deeply value is people like this who are able to speak intelligently and passionately about justice issues, poverty, and concern for the least of these while also maintaining some of the evangelical commitments of the Scripture.  More and more voices are emerging that are neither conservative nor liberal, fundamentalist nor mainline, republican nor democrat but hold together the biblical truths which cross such narrow, dualistic, and truncated views of the Scripture.

Good read for anyone who is thinking about the emerging church, renewal of the church and culture, poverty, urban ministry, community, and what some consider a more “radical” Christianity, which I think is probably closer to the identity of the early church than many of the churches in America today.

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It’s been a long time since I’ve read a Max Lucado book.  Lucado’s new book, Fearless, is a book about the fears that are so prevalent in our lives and how they affect us.  Lucado takes these fears on head on and matches fear with courage, and fright with faith, with heavy doses of mercy, grace, and generous love.  It’s an uplifting book that en-courages by giving you a dose of an alternative, biblical reality of a God in control.

What I like about Lucado is his ability to use Scripture, prayer, stories, examples, and easy to read, engaging and creative writing.  In this book, Lucado looks past fear and into the heart of the pain behind and inflicted by so many of our fears.  He is engaging in stories and metaphors, and then is a straight shooter with the clarity of biblical truth.

The promise of Christ and the contention of this book are simple: we can fear less tomorrow than we do today. [p. 13]

Destructive anxiety subtracts God from the future, faces uncertainties with no faith, tallies up the challenges of the day without entering God into the equation. [p. 46]

The Expanded Bible

I recently got a copy of The Expanded Bible, New Testament, published by Thomas Nelson. It’s text is a modified New Century Version, and the “contributing scholars” are Tremper Longman III, Mark L. Strauss, and Daniel Taylor. I’m new to Strauss, but I’ve appreciated Longman’s writings and thoughts as a biblical scholar for a long time. I first learned about him through Dan Allender (who happens to be a promoter on the dust jacket). Taylor, as far as I’ve known, is more of a writer than a biblical scholar, but has always worked with biblical material, is contibuting editor to Books & Culture, etc. I had my introduction to Taylor at the Calvin Faith & Writing Conference years ago.

In any case, this is a very interesting resource, and I’ve already found it quite useful. What these writers/ scholars have done is take the New Century Version and then expanded it within the text to include alternative translations for words or phrases, literal translations of the words, the traditional translation (read KJV), comments, references and textual variants. Rather than have some of these within the footnotes, or expanded explanations (as in a Study Bible), these are included within the text. Doing this allows the reader to see the translation decisions that need to be made, or the possible other meanings, textures of the text, etc. It also allows the reader to see both the formal equivalence possibilities (favoring a more literal translation) and functional equivalence models (favoring words that convey meaning rather than being literal) – choices which most translations make and you never see.

What I appreciate about the Expanded Bible is the ability to really see what’s going on a little better without a) having to go to multiple translations or b) having to go back to the original language. Particularly for those who do not have training in Greek or haven’t studied the textual variants or semantic range of words or idiomatic renderings, this can be a great help for Bible Study or teacher preparation.

One thing that may be lacking here is a more helpful explanation of textual variants as well as translation in general. There is a good, short explanation of the difference between a formal and functional model, but more information in the introduction could help those who pick this up and haven’t been introduced to the issues. What I find in most churches is a relative lack of knowledge about how the bible has been contructed, about additional manuscripts, scribal errors, the decision-making process of most translators (older, harder reading, etc.)

However, overall, I think this is a great addition to or prequel to a Study Bible. It allows you to get into the text with more texture without getting into someone else’s decisions about what the correct reading is, or someone else’s interpretation. With any translation, many decisions have been made. With a study bible, there is lots of commentary on interpretation.

I would not probably use this Bible as a normal “reading” bible. I would find all the symbols and extra information distracting, but in the right uses, it can be really helpful. I think an Old Testament Version would be great.