The Great Conversation is my term for the combined teachings of all followers of Jesus as we attempt to share Him with our world. I believe it’s important to clarify the place of Bible805 in all the other options you have for learning the Bible, for those of you using my resources so there are no unrealistic expectations.

To do that, I’ll first clarify what I mean by the Great Conversation and then what I believe is my part and the part of Bible805 in it. Below is the podcast and then the text of it.

The importance of understanding the Great Conversation                                     

No one of us has the final and complete, first and last word on our infinite God and His ways and no audience we’re sent to share with has the same needs or hears in a similar way because of their various backgrounds and cultures.

And so a symphony of voices and viewpoints is needed. How do these come about?

First, we listen to the Lord to discover our particular voice, the part we are to play. We spend time in His Word to make certain that at its core our message is always a reflection of His message. After we learn our message, we craft its presentation to meet the needs of the particular audience we’ve been called to serve.

The Great Conversation is also like a symphony

— in that we each work to perfect our instrument for getting out the message we’ve been given. The messages are very different, assigned by the Lord appropriate to the audience we’ve been given and tailored to the gifts we possess.

God has made some of His instruments loud and vigorous like kettle drums beating truths home, some are like a gentle violin melody, slowly sinking into the heart and mind, some a steady rythm but all needed for the song to be complete.

We aren’t called to tell others how to play the instrument assigned to them; to master our own takes all our focus and energy if we are to play our part well.

Instead of critiquing other symphony members, above all we must keep our eyes on the Conductor, not assuming the job of conductor for anyone else’s work. Our job is to trust the Conductor to guide us all to work in harmony, to let us know when to practice more, when to play loudly, when to be softer, when to rest.

The place of Bible805 in the Great Conversation

I hope that made sense.

I was attempting to put into context what I believe is the part the Lord wants me and Bible805 to play in the Great Conversation. The ministry of Bible805 is only a part and a far from a perfect, complete, or commanding part.

The usefulness of the message of Bible805 does not come from the authority of an institution or a list of my personal credentials.

It is a part played by, as C.S. Lewis put it, “a mere Christian.”

The place of Bible805 in the Great Conversation

To help me define the part I play, I asked my students (as none of us ever see ourselves correctly) what made my teaching different and when they had choices, what made it something they wanted to take time to listen to or attend a class or what a video I produced.

The answer I got repeatedly, stated in similar ways was that I “make hard stuff [in and about the Bible] easy to understand.”

Though I hadn’t really thought about it or summarized my teaching in that way, I realized that is what I feel called to do. I love to explain the Bible, to help people truly understand it. I get great joy and satisfaction from seeing that sudden look of understanding in someone’s eyes and even greater joy seeing lives changed from repeated study of and time in God’s Word.

As I thought about it, I realized this approach to teaching the Bible is founded on my firm conviction that our God wants to be known, to be understood. Immediately after creating humanity, God talked and walked with His people—intimate, sharing, day-to-day familiarity was His initial design. When that bond was broken by His dearly loved creation to a degree beyond our comprehension in its cosmic consequences, God didn’t abandon us.

God pursued His rebellious and wandering creation. He spent millennia in preparation that culminated with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to heal the breach, and the Holy Spirit was sent to indwell God’s people as a guarantee and foretaste of the future wherein once again, in the Kingdom, humanity will walk face-to-face in risen and redeemed bodies, in intimate conversational love forever with the God who created them for this purpose.

How that applies to our purpose, here and now, day-to-day

It follows then that I believe God’s intention for us isn’t solely to ultimately save us from eternal death and separation from Him, (though of course that is of incredible importance) but His intention is to have a day-by-day conversational relationship with us now and that He’s told us how to have that sort of relationship with Him in the Bible.

The Bible is God’s Word to us, literally His words for all we need to know and how to live a life of fulfilment, joy and peace; walking with our God now and forever. But not everyone knows these truths and that’s what I want to share, as simply and clearly as possible.

In God’s mercy He let me learn the Bible from early childhood with the influence of a godly grandmother and a mother took us to church and read my sister and I Bible stories every night. I loved everything about the Bible and Jesus and church for as long as I can remember.

I started to share what I learned when as a third grader I helped teaching the kindergarteners in Sunday School, I got my own little class when I was in sixth grade, I took over the high school group (our leaders left the church and no one else wanted to do it) when I was a sophomore in high school and I haven’t quit teaching the Bible in one way or another since then.

I love the Bible and teaching the Bible to people, helping them to know, trust, apply and teach the Bible is my place in the Great Conversation. My constant prayer as I create materials is that the Lord help me to be clear, never confusing or simply clever, but clear—to truly make hard stuff in the Bible easy to understand.

The particular methods that I use to do that have come from much study, and experience and they will be the topic of another podcast and blog.

For now, I want to be the simple explainer of difficult things in the Bible, to help others know, trust, apply and teach it and in all to develop a conversational relationship with Jesus.

That is the purpose of Bible805. I hope you’ll join me it.