Long before the Bible was a book on a shelf, it was a voice in a room.

Paul wrote letters to be read aloud to churches meeting in living rooms. The Psalms were sung by crowds. For most of history, “reading the Bible” meant hearing it with other people, interruptions and arguments and long silences included.

The Read helps you experience the Bible that way again.

Not as a solo assignment. Not as another thing to fall behind on. Not as a reference manual you’re supposed to decode alone.

Instead, you gather a few people, open the New Testament together, and follow a simple path through the story, together.

HOW IT WORKS

You get a Bible that’s designed to be read: Tyndale’s Immerse: Messiah, the New Testament with the chapter numbers, verse numbers, and footnotes cleared away so it reads like the story it is. You gather your people. Your small group, your family, the friends who would never come to a “Bible study” but would show up for a book club. Then you read for eight weeks, meeting once a week around the same four questions:

What stood out to you? Was anything confusing or troubling? Did anything make you think differently about God? How might this change the way we live?

No teacher. No homework grades. No wrong answers. It sounds too simple to work, which is roughly what everyone says until week three.

WHERE WE CAME FROM

The Read grew out of a church-wide reading challenge where we watched whole congregations read the New Testament together and come out different on the other side. First-timers finished. People who’d been believers for decades saw things they’d read past a hundred times. And group after group didn’t want to stop meeting when the eight weeks ended.

We kept the fire and rebuilt the campsite. The Read is that same experience, redesigned so any church or group can run it. 

WHO’S BEHIND IT

The Read is a partnership of three ministries that believe the Bible reads best in company:

• Small Group Network — the global network of small-group pastors; we run the campaign and walk with churches.
• Tyndale House Publishers — makers of the Immerse Reading Bible series and the New Living Translation.
• Our Daily Bread Ministries — reaching millions daily with Scripture across the world.

With friends along the trail: The Bible Project, Celebrate Recovery, Lumivoz, and more.

AN INVITATION

You don’t need a seminary degree and you don’t need a curriculum budget. You need a book, some people, and four questions.

Gather together. Experience the Bible.