People of the Book: Inviting Communities Into Biblical Interpretation

Synopsis: We live in an era when the Bible appears to be less and less relevant to mainstream cultures. Those who do care about the Scriptures tend to derive their interpretations secondhand, from the preacher's pulpit or from generalized study guides written by complete strangers. These approaches overlook the communal and conversational nature of the Bible itself. If we hope to recover the transformative power of these ancient texts, and invite our world to reconsider their significance, we will need to engage whole communities together in the bottom-up task of interpretation. People of the Book was written to offer an organic-holistic approach to communal interpretation, an approach that can work for your community and appeal to your wider culture. Halcomb and McNinch envision the Bible as a conversation we are privileged to enter: listening, questioning, wrestling, reasoning, and responding together as authentic people of the Book. Endorsements: "For too long we've seen ourselves as culture warriors engaged in a 'battle for the Bible.' Halcomb and McNinch propose a new way through the misery this metaphor makes. What if instead we are conversation partners engaged in a communal search for the meaning and implications of a text that can transform us together? What if this is what it really means to be 'a people of the book'?" --Ken Wilson Author of Mystically Wired: Exploring New Realms in Prayer "Too many Christian communities cultivate an innocuous church-talk that isn't really about anything and that does not wrestle with the scriptural text. People of the Book offers a rich and compelling alternative in which Christian communities allow themselves to be shaped by their open-ended, holistic, and conversational grappling with the church's book." --Gary J. Dorrien Author of Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice Author Biography: T. Michael W. Halcomb is a PhD candidate in biblical studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and teaches at Centenary United Methodist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. He is also the author of the forthcoming book Entering the Fray: A Primer on New Testament Issues for the Church & Academy (Wipf & Stock). Timothy McNinch is the founding pastor of Vineyard Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan. He worked for several years as a campus staff member for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

T. Michael W. Halcomb is a PhD candidate at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of People of the Book: Inviting Communities into Biblical Interpretation, Entering the Fray: A Primer on New Testament Issues for the Church & Academy, and A Handbook of Ancient Greek Grammatical Terms: Greek-English and English-Greek.

Timothy McNinch is the founding pastor of Vineyard Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan. He worked for several years as a campus staff member for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.