- [Narrator] You might still be wondering,
"What do I do with the Bible?"
If all you walk away from these videos with is that
you need to read your Bible more, you're missing out,
because we're not talking about some religious act
you can do to make yourself feel better,
or to make God love you, or to be a better Christian.
We're not talking about checking off a box
or doing a routine.
The Bible isn't just something to inform you.
It's something to transform you.
It's one way to hear the God of the universe speak to you.
It's a way where you get to quiet the noise of life
and cultivate peace, wisdom, and the presence of our Father.
See how it happened for Ben.
- My relationship with Jesus just started off
with just like knowing about Jesus,
and not necessarily knowing Him personally,
that led to my struggle in middle school
with pornography.
Soon after high school, I was still having this problem.
I didn't tell anybody.
Silence is the worst thing to do
if you're stuck in sin.
So God led me to Psalm 119.
It says, "How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to Your Word.
I seek You with all my heart.
Do not let me stray from Your commands.
And I have hidden Your Word in my heart,
that I might not sin against You."
So that moment is what God used to say,
"Hey, if you want to get your life in order,
take My Word seriously,
and start to live it out, and take Me seriously."
I was like, "Aww snap, I need to
actually hide His Word in my heart."
So God, soon after, a few days later, He led me
to have a specific plan,
like okay, memorize Colossians.
So then I started memorizing Colossians,
and then I started memorizing Philippians,
and through God's Word,
He started to transform my mind,
like in Romans 12,
"The renewal of your mind,
so that then you will be able to discern
what His will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will."
And through His Word, He started
to give me a love for Him,
more than the things of this world.
He led me to confess my sins to my brothers,
the men in my church, and I found new freedom from that.
And I found new freedom in sharing my story
with not only with them, but with my friends
that are also in college,
my friends that apparently also struggle with that.
And when I started confessing my sin
and seeking prayer for healing,
I realized, "Whoa, I'm not the only one
that had struggles with this."
As I thought before, "I'm not alone with this."
Seeing my weakness
and seeing that other people struggled with the same things,
made me realize that other people need the same truth.
Other people need the Scripture
to transform their lives as well.
And God just gave me
a supernatural excitement for the Word, that's contagious.
Other people were saying, "Oh,
I need to memorize
more Scripture myself.
That's crazy, you memorized all of Colossians?
How is that even possible?"
And so it started that conversation
and it inspired other people
that it's doable if you're intentional about it,
and especially in such a culture
that is trying to pull you away
from Jesus, from having your eyes fixed
on things above, not on earthly things.
That's how God inspired me to share that with other people,
and straight up, we all need Jesus.
We all need His Word.
We all are so in desperate need of Him
every minute of every day.
- [Narrator] Powerful stuff, right?
But here's the real gut punch.
The Bible isn't just for you.
We don't just read it so that we feel better
or so that we become a good person.
People have a lot of opinions
about what the Bible is.
But the story of the Bible is so much better
than we often give it credit for.
- [Narrator] So the Bible is
one of the most influential books
of all time, but what is it, exactly?
- [Narrator] Yeah, some people treat the Bible
like a divine behavioral manual
that dropped out of Heaven.
Others use it like a theology dictionary,
written to answer all of our questions about God.
And others, still, think of it like a grab bag
of spiritual one-liners and inspiring stories.
- [Narrator] But here's the thing.
The Bible isn't written as a rule book,
or theology dictionary, or even as a collection
of inspirational writings.
- [Narrator] Then what is the Bible?
- [Narrator] Well, open up the Bible to page one
and read the opening words.
- [Narrator] "In the beginning..."
- [Narrator] Now turn to the last chapter of the Bible,
where you can read this.
[Narrator] "And they reigned forever and ever."
Okay, so the Bible's telling a story
from beginning to end.
- [Narrator] Yeah, it's one epic narrative
about how God has appointed humanity
as His partners, to oversee this amazing world.
It's about how we've ruined that partnership
and how God is restoring us and our world through Jesus.
- [Narrator] Okay, one story, but there's a lot going on,
many plots, many characters, all written
in many different books.
- [Narrator] But once you see how every book
has a careful literary design,
you won't get lost and you can see
how it fits into the overall story line.
- [Narrator] There are also important repeated themes
that weave through the entire biblical story.
- [Narrator] Yeah, like the covenants
that God makes with people.
- [Narrator] Or the hope for a human who will confront evil.
- [Narrator] Or how God's justice
will one day make all things right.
And everything culminates in the story of Jesus.
- [Narrator] There are also
a lot of strange words in the Bible,
words we don't use in normal language.
- [Narrator] But when we take time to understand them,
we discover profound ideas that contribute
to the overall biblical story.
- [Narrator] So it takes work to know how to read
the different types of literature in the Bible.
- [Narrator] But once you do learn how,
you'll discover that the Bible
is a work of literary genius
that can transform how you live
and how you think about everything.
- [Narrator] So the Bible tells the unified story
that changed our world forever,
and has the power to change our lives
from the inside out.
In it, we find hope, peace, comfort,
and the presence of God.
We find timeless truths to guide our lives.
But it's so much more than self-help
or a guide to living your best life.
The Bible is for everyone.
The Bible is too important to keep to ourselves.
We've got to help others read it,
learn it and live it, as we ourselves
are learning to read it, understand it, and live it.
Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament,
has a particularly gut-punching verse
in the book of 1 Corinthians 8:1-3.
He's writing to the church in Corinth,
and this church is bickering about all sorts of issues.
They're talking about what to do
with the food offered to the idols,
how to clean themselves, and all sorts of stuff.
And Paul says, "Knowledge makes us feel important,
but love builds the Church."
If all you do is read the Bible
so that you can know more, win arguments,
win Bible trivia, sound smart or be a better Christian,
you're missing out and reading it wrong,
If we don't take the knowledge we learn
and put it into action by loving others and serving them,
we're not building the church.
We're building our brand, we're building our platforms,
we're making ourselves important.
Instead, we've got to build a church
by showing love and sharing love.
We've got to stop gaining knowledge
for the sake of gaining knowledge,
and we've got to start humbly using that knowledge
to make a tangible difference in the world around us.
So what?
What's the big deal about all of this?
Jesus told us to "go out into all the world
and make disciples, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
His last speech to us gave us His mission for us.
He promised to be with us, but our responsibility
is to go out into the world and teach them the Word,
to introduce them to Jesus,
to share the Good News with the globe.
And what if that mission has never seemed more possible?
We live in a world where we can share anything.
We've never been more connected,
and we have the opportunity
to share the good news of Jesus like never before.
In a world where anything can go viral,
we must share what is most vital.
A woman from Cobone, Africa, sums up what it means
when people get a copy of the Word of God
in a language they can fully and completely understand.
Here's what she said.
- In the community of my mother tongues,
if He didn't speak my language,
He is the God of other people, not my God.
That's why it is very important
to translate the Bible.
Many people in our mother tongues
know Jesus, accept Jesus
and we are very, very very,
very, very grateful.
- [Narrator] Can you imagine feeling like God is distant
because everything you've ever heard about Him
was in a language foreign to you?
That's not who God is.
He's a personal God.
That's why He sent Jesus and the Holy Spirit
to be with us and in us.
That's actually what the Bible is all about.
God's incredible, wonderful persistence
to be close to who He loves.
But today, there are more than 3,800 languages
that have little to no access
to the story of God in the Bible.
That's one billion people living in Bible poverty,
who might feel distant from God.
This is a solvable problem.
illumiNations is the largest collective impact alliance
of Bible translators in the world,
working to provide access to God's Word
in all languages by 2033.
But the Great Commission always happens together.
What's your part?
How will you live out God's Word where you live?
And how will you help share God's story
with people like Priscilla?
Let's be the generation to eradicate Bible poverty,
providing access to Scripture
for every language on Earth.
Are you in? (lively orchestra music)