At the Table of the Word

Six chairs. Six Bibles. One Book - and no two people at the table read it the same way.A deacon who has read the Bible every morning for fifty years - and just discovered he is standing in the doorway. A retired teacher who sees one great story on every page. A heating contractor who wants the word to hit him. A hospital administrator who can no longer say 'God said' - and is tired of pretending. A pastor with thirty-five years and a wall of books. And an old Greek who asks the questions nobody else will.They read the same Bible. They do not read it the same way. And not one of them has ever examined how they read - because nobody ever told them there was anything to examine.Over eleven evenings, Socrates asks the questions the church has whispered for centuries: What is this Book? Which Bible are we reading - and who decided? Did you arrive at your reading, or did you bring it with you? Can one fixed meaning really reach ten million different lives? What happens when the word collides with someone you love? And what do you do with the texts you have been hiding from?Nothing is waved away. The hardest passages are opened. The hardest question is asked of every chair - including the pastor’s. And every person at the table leaves saying the same three words no one planned to say.I need more.Written for two readers at once - the new believer meeting these questions for the first time, and the fifty-year saint who has carried them for decades - this book will not tell you what to think. It will teach you how to find out. There is a seventh chair at this table.It is yours.'They received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.'- Acts 17:11