Well rooted, well winged
For most of us, the biblical canon with its 66 “books” has always been a given, inherited from the past, our parents and churches. We have not concerned ourselves very much with it, even though we may have heard that the Catholic version of the Bible has more “books” in it than the Protestant version. …
A meaningful way to dispose of unwanted Bibles
Tim Martens carefully unwraps a pair of tattered-looking old books. One is an ancient German Bible, its text printed in fine Gothic script, the other an old Gesangbuch or songbook. The Duck Lake, Sask. resident believes these worn and frayed tomes, no longer wanted or needed by anyone, deserve to be treated with respect. To…
Shaped by our essential book
The name Arab Christians use for the Bible translates literally as “The Holy Book,” and they often shorten it to “The Book.” Article 4 of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective states: “The Bible is the essential book of the church.” What does it mean if we see the Bible as the book…
Bible commentary geared for younger readers
Reading the Bible can be challenging; it is a complex collection of books written thousands of years ago in different cultures. The Bible Unwrapped has easy-to-read explanations for inexperienced readers to get a handle on how to make sense of it all. The author is a teaching pastor at a Mennonite church in Arizona and…
Biblical characters as spiritual companions
The Bible is full of stories about people, real people with bodies and minds, and with an array of experiences, relationships and emotions. How odd, then, that we so often turn to the Bible as little more than an instruction manual for communal and personal life. What would happen if we expanded our reliance on…
Bible trivia event generates spirited competition
As people gathered for the Bible Quizzing for Grown-ups event on Sept. 30 at the Huether Hotel in Waterloo, the room buzzed with conversation, but when the quizmasters began reading questions from the Gospel of Luke, the room went quiet. The mood was light-hearted, but definitely competitive as eight teams listened intently and searched their…
Paying attention to the invisible
Every month, several women from Charleswood Mennonite Church in Winnipeg go to jail. But unlike the women they meet with behind bars, they get to walk out of the barbed wire fences and go safely to their homes at the end of the night. Six women from Charleswood lead a Bible study for the inmates…
A Bible comes home
On May 12, some 125 people gathered at Conrad Grebel University College for an unusual homecoming celebration—for a Bible. This large, centuries-old book is a part of Ontario Amish Mennonite history. The Bender Bible arrived in the wilderness of Upper Canada in 1832 with the Amish Mennonite immigrant family of Jacob and Magdalena Bender, who…
‘A rich storehouse of treasure awaiting learners’
Scripture and community were the focus when Mennonite Church B.C. members gathered at Level Ground Mennonite Church in Abbotsford on April 14, 2018, for Reading the Bible Together. Resource person Tim Geddert, a professor of New Testament at Fresno Pacific University’s Biblical Seminary in California, called the Bible a “rich storehouse of treasure awaiting learners.”…
Wrestling with challenging texts
Most upper-level university classes end with a final essay, not a photography project, prayerful meditations or a “yarn-bombed” tree. Sheila Klassen-Wiebe, however, took the road less travelled for Feminist Perspectives on Bible and Theology. Last fall, Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) offered this feminist theology class, which was taught by Klassen-Wiebe, an associate professor in biblical…
