And the Bible?
These ‘discipliniary revivals’ are fantastic and have done so much to enrich and disciple our young people. But it seems the Bible has not been through that process.
A new season
However, a new season is emerging. Young people seem hungry for depth of teaching; they want to understand what the Bible means. While there is an important place for ‘point of view’ teaching, rooted in Scripture but not necessarily unpacking its depth there is now a growing hunger for the deep things of God’s Word.
With this new season, we have seen things like the Nooma DVDs take the youth work world, and the church, by storm. Questions like, ‘What did this Scripture mean to the first people who heard it?’ open up God’s Word in fresh ways.
Bible Society is passionately committed to seeing this hunger for depth met for young people. We are launching initiatives to help young people engage with Scripture. We are committed to supporting youth workers and working with them to find models of engaging with Scripture that have an impact.
The Poverty and Justice Bible
One of the first steps is The Poverty and Justice Bible. For young people who are already plugged into social action and mission, this as an exciting aid to help them understand God’s heart for the poor. When it comes to fighting poverty and justice, God got there first. Worship that fails to address issues of poverty and justice us not worship at all. As Tony Campolo puts it, ‘Faith without commitment to justice for the poor is a sham.’
End the waiting
We are also engaging young people with the desire to make the Bible heard all over the world. When young people love and value Scripture themselves, they will long to help other people find that depth and truth. So we hope we will be able to encourage them as they find new and creative ways of communicating the Bible to our culture here in the UK.
Also, with half of the world’s languages still not having even one book of the Bible available to them, we will strive to work with young people to set the truth free around the world. This has been the case with our End the Waiting project at Spring Harvest this year, in which young people helped to fund the release of a Bible in Pijin for half a million people in the Solomon Islands.
‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free’
John 8.32
