“Reading the Bible should be a form of prayer. The Bible should be read in God’s presence and as the unfolding of His mind. It is not just a book, but God’s love letter to you. It is God’s revelation, God’s mind, operating through your mind and your reading, so your reading is your response to His mind and will. Reading it is aligning your mind and will with God’s; therefore it is a fulfillment of the prayer, ‘Thy will be done,’ which is the most basic and essential key to achieving our whole purpose on earth: holiness and happiness.”

Peter Kreeft

The Bible is foundational to the development of Western thought and culture, yet most people have no more than a passing acquaintance with its contents. Even the experience of many (dare I say most?) church-going Christians tends to be one of piecemeal encounters with Scripture: Sunday-school stories about ‘heroes of the Bible’, Christmas pageants, seasonal readings and sermons, favourite hymns and choruses, etc.

The aim of this course is to encourage students to approach Scripture as a whole – to see that, although the Bible is in fact a library (scores of books, each with its own integrity, written over the course of centuries, by numerous human authors), it is yet bound together as one volume by the one Divine Author, presenting a coherent revelation: God’s Word to His people.

This course focuses on the Old Testament, with special attention paid to the topics of Providence and redemption, creation and fall, the land of promise, exile and return, call and covenant, and kings and prophets.

Our focus will be primarily on the content of the Bible, but we will also reflect upon how we read and understand the text, often drawing into our discussion insights from other Christian writers throughout the centuries