First lines are fascinating. The first half-line of text from the Old Testament is where I begin. It is where this ministry begins. Why? Well, this is a ministry that is centered on the Bible and the God we encounter there, so starting at the beginning…seems to be a very good place to start.

“Ok,” you might be saying, “But…why this beginning?”

Good question. Great question, actually.

Many of us might want to know why is this ministry—which is for Latter-Day Saint/ed people a ministry that is specifically about the Bible and the God we encounter in its pages, if most Latter-Day Saint/ed people have already dedicated the majority of their active faith lives in the practice of regular scripture study?

Well, for more than a decade I’ve been thinking about the relationships that many of the people who are at the heart of my life have with the Bible. As Latter-Day Saint/ed people in the current span of generations (whether we are active and practicing or not), we have probably spent much of our focused scripture and Gospel study for 10, 20, 30 or more years dedicated to the words of Latter-Day leaders of the faith and the four books that are included in the canon of LDS scripture. So, it follows that for your average Restored Gospel-minded person today, the Bible may gather some dust, simply because Restored Gospel study emerges primarily from the three books that have the most to say about the centrality and principles unique to the Restored Gospel.

Pause.

Is this a good time for a moment of candid group confession without judgement??? Why YES. YES, it is.

Likely, many of us have not taken the opportunity to become as familiar with the Bible as we are likely to be with the scriptures that we derive the core of Restored Gospel living and believing from. Even though a good part of this audience has probably spent daily or nearly daily time doing scripture study, we can be honest in our assessment of how we have spent that time and haven’t spent that time. Confession is good for the soul. I (Lucie Clarke) am included in all of these candid confessions and I can say with a high level of confidence that the humility/gentle humiliation of acknowledging that the leg of my life labeled Bible Study has, until recently, been a lot shorter than the other leg labeled “other scripture and gospel-centered resources I have studied.” For me, that was the case until I walked into a chapter of life that connected me to a whole new dynamic of Bible awareness and interaction.

It isn’t stretching the truth for many of us whose lives are or have been centrally shaped and guided by the Latter-Day Saint experience, that we may run into neighbors in the evangelical lane or elsewhere whose Bible literacy and confidence out paces our own—by a little or quite a lot. And we may feel a little intimidated by this book that we love, but just aren’t as acquainted with as other texts of the faith that our lives have been immersed in.

Now, this isn’t to say that Latter-Day Saint/ed people neglect the Bible or are totally unfamiliar with it. No way—those who are active in practice and devotion to the Restored Gospel framework encounter teachings drawn from the Bible frequently; therefore, many of us have done more than our early morning or release-time seminary scripture mastery.

We love the New Testament and are fascinated by the key figures and events of the Old Testament—a talking snake, towers to the sky, the drunken misbehavior of Noah’s sons, floods, rainbows, parted sea, fiery serpents, talking donkey, prostitute rescue’s an army, a prophet is a naked object lesson, Israel, God’s beloved bride cheats on Yahweh with foreign gods, again and God is patient, again and God is steadfastly pursuing her, again The LORD cries out to her to turn back to His merciful and ready-to-forgive-heart, and again.. and in many raw and painful seasons of God’s naked fairness, the small but mighty Bride Israel is given over to what she wants for a time: autonomy. These times when Almighty God lets a very wriggly and resistant Israel down from his Sovereign embrace are so painful and yet so relatable. How often do I believe and live as if God is performing a choke hold on my autonomy and needs to quit and behave as my divine assistant instead of the righteous Ruler and King over every part of the life he has given me?

Most definitely, however, the Bible is a strange mirror to hold up for many of us.  Foremost among the reasons why is that that its fully embodied daily landscape in time and place is almost completely foreign to us. The texts have a deeply aromatic culture that many of us fill in with our own imagined soundtrack, sensibilities, and daily rhythms. As we read, we may realize that we have a very anemic picture of it all, but we may not see that we are actually envisioning an entirely contemporary, completely odorless and very fragmented looking caricature at best.

But my assertion is that we need this book more than we know and that by exploring it with better tools and greater intellectual virtue, we will discern that its phenomenally ancient lessons to all of humanity are often wildly misunderstood but never out of date or out of relevance. My hope is that more people—even just a handful of people will begin to sense that we may never touch the limit of the wellspring that this amazing story offers us from there “In the beginning.”

See you soon for MORE GOOD,

lucie

Let’s roll the credits:

Here are a few well-known and respected resources that have helped from the beginning of my efforts to take an intellectually humble, careful and logical approach to exploring the topics and ideas in this article:

Resources on the ancient Hebrew view of God and gods

Podcasts:

https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/god-series/

Books:

Counterfeit Gods By Tim Keller. Published in 2009 by Dutton

Websites for parallel Bible translations and Hebrew/Greek translation:

www.biblehub.com

www.biblegateway.com