“Let’s turn to the book of Acts.”
I should know by now that a sentence like that causes pulses to race and faces to blush. The request seems innocuous, but when you’re the pastor sitting with folks who either haven’t been to church in a while or who are pretty new to opening a Bible, I might as well have asked them to explain a complicated tax code.
Biblical literacy is pretty low these days (take this quiz to see how you do) and when you’re the pastor of a new church reaching folks who are new to church, you should know that when you say something like, “Let’s turn to the book of Acts” you need to follow that with “It’s near the back of the Bible, right around Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
An even better place to start, though, may be simply to say, “Let’s look at the table of contents.” It’s a great way to explain that the Bible is a library, a collection of different types of literature, written at different times in history. It also helps individuals not feel dumb. I need to take this advice myself.
My devotional requested that I open to the book of Joel the other morning. “Joel, Joel, Joel,” I thought, “I know where that is,” and I started searching around the end of the Old Testament. I flipped this way and that. No Joel. Is it near Jonah? Habakkuk? I couldn’t remember so I finally remembered what a wise pastor told me: That’s why they have a table of contents. I used it. There was Joel, tucked in between Hosea and Amos.
“ Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart…” says Joel 2:12. Indeed. The table of contents is a bit like returning to a well-loved bookstore or library.
Whether you believe yourself to be a biblical expert or the thought of all those thee’s and thou’s make you break into hives, start with the table of contents. There’s a whole world waiting.