The Bible Changes Everything

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This is the Truth Network. Twenty-five million Bibles are sold in the United States of America. Every year Bible publishers make more than a half a billion dollars annually. Nine out of ten Americans have a Bible, yet only 37 percent claim to read that Bible once a week.

Folks, what's going on? Is the Bible really the word of God sharp and powerful? Quicker or sharper than any two-edged sword? Does the Bible really not return void? Is it really God's Word that we are to not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God?

If so, folks, what's going on here? Well, some friends are in the studio. Thank God for friends like Michael with Walk Through the Bible. Michael, put it right on your chin and tell us your passion with Walk Through the Bible, and a little bit about Michael, and how this ministry came out of this huge hunger for the Word all over the world.

We're going to get into the global mission, too. Talk to us here on So Good to Have You Here. It's so good to have you on Truth Talk Live with me.

Thank you so much for having us. Walk Through the Bible, at our very core, believes that the Bible changes everything. We believe that what the Bible says about itself is true, that it is the power of God, that it has the power to transform and change our life. As a ministry, we are committed to helping ignite a passion for God's Word and people around the world.

Walk Through the Bible is 40 years old now. It started as an idea in a seminary classroom back at Dallas Theological Seminary. They really decided, how do we help people understand God's Word, understand the big picture, the big story of God's Word?

It's grown from an idea in a seminary classroom 40 years later to a ministry that's serving in 139 countries around the world now. What I love about your ministry is your premise. Your premise that the Word of God is sufficient. The premise that Paul trumpets in 2 Timothy 3.16, all scriptures God breathed and is profitable for all of these things.

Another word for profitable is sufficient. Yet so often if you check our pulpits, we maybe read a verse, but we pop from topic to topic. It's like a pablum of psychological sales training, motivational training, how to smile more, don't let your down get you down, and God's got something on the other side for you as opposed to just a teaching, an exposition, an exegetical approach to the most powerful book ever written, because this is God's Word.

So really it's divine revelation. Let's go negative here, Michael, about the void and about how the Bible has kind of lost its, sadly, among God's people, who should be people of the book. That's what we've been called so much. Even the Muslims used to call Christians people, and the Jews people of the book. But we've lost it.

Go into how we have declined. Yeah, the stats that you read a few minutes ago are true, and you look at the church in North America, and the Bible is not read, even by those who would claim to be highly devoted followers of Christ. The Bible is often a neglected book, both in the pulpit and in the person sitting in the pew or the chair, and we know there's a lot of reasons for that.

In some cases it's apathy, just the laziness. Some people are confused or frightened by the Bible. They think it's big and scary and don't know where to get started, or they start and don't keep going. So Walk Through the Bible is committed to providing resources and tools to help people overcome those obstacles and stay committed to reading the Bible. And one thing I've loved about your ministry, and this is Truth Talk Live, I'm Stu Everson, we're talking to a man whose entire ministry is committed to a ministry that's committed to the Word of God, and really getting the Word of God to the people of God and the people that don't know God. Because the entrance of thy word gives light and gives understanding, see the psalmist says.

But Michael, let's talk about that. We can rail on the vacuous nature of the missing word and how there's paucity of the Bible in the land. People aren't studying, aren't reading, their pastors aren't preaching. But let's talk about the cool things Walk Through the Bible is doing right now, because I know there's listeners out there that want to get involved in a ministry, that want to get you to your church. Even as a little guy, when I would go to the Walk Through the Bible seminars, I loved it, man, the seminars. You got a guy get up there showing that these are the 12 tribes of Israel, you know, and this is the 10 plagues, and on and on.

I love that. Tell us about Walk Through the Bible. Show us the beauty of this book and what y'all are doing to bring that back. Well, Walk Through really began with Walk Through the Old Testament live event, and that's a half-day event in which the instructor uses hand signs and other creative teaching ways to learn the big people, places, and events of the Old Testament. It tells you the big story.

It's the cover of the puzzle box, so you can see how all the pieces fit together. It just gives you that big picture of the Bible, so when you pick it up and you begin to read a story, you see how it fits in the overall narrative of God's Word, either in the Old Testament or the New Testament. It's really showing people, hey, this is living, and this is real, and like it claims about itself, but also, man, there's some adventures in this thing. This book is not, you know, you could, the story time for kids, we're always looking for stories to tell our kids, well, they're right there. I mean, how many stories are there out there that you could make up about a guy, you know, a whole entire army walking around a wall seven times blowing the trumpet, you know, and all this stuff, and the wall come tumbling down, right? And Jonah and the whale and the building of the ark and all these things, so really you're trying to bring this to life, but there's something deeper than just a storybook about the Bible. Talk about that, how this is God's revelation and what the Word of God does when it gets inside of you, how it starts, you study it, it starts to study you.

Yeah, these are not just stories to read and then put on a shelf. These are stories that when we read them, we have our lives transformed and changed by them. We begin to understand more of who God is and who God wants us to be, and our lives begin to be shaped by the author of Scripture, and we begin to be the people that He desires for us to be.

Reading the Bible is not like reading any other book. We read God's Word, and it changes us, it transforms us. I think about the Savior's words in John 15, where He makes it very real. He connects His Bible, He connects His Word with intimacy with Him. Abide in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bring forth fruit, except it abides in vine. No more can ye except ye abide in me. John 15.5, apart from me ye can do nothing. That's, by the way, my pin tweet on Twitter.

I can't seem to take it down. It's Stu Epperson. Y'all follow me. That's the first thing you're going to see on Twitter, is that verse, John 15.5, which I love. But what's fascinating is what he says later. He says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you. In verse 2, he says, now you are clean through the Word I've spoken to you. So it's His Word. He's communicating with us. He's speaking to us directly. When you abide in the Bible, God talks directly to you. When you abide in the Bible, you get a text directly from God. And He said, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you ask anything you want, it'll be given to you.

Why? Because His Word's flooding through. You're going to ask what He wants, because He's changed your heart. But that's what I love about walking through the Bible, is you're getting the Word, and it's spreading. And there's places we can't talk about where it's spreading, like in the Middle East, where people are getting radically saved. And they're taking that book, and they're putting away the other books. They're just taking the Bible. But talk about the need, real quick, as we close out, walking the Bible right now.

I mean, you're also involved in development, advancement. You're trying to get people to get on the Bible bus here, and to donate, to send money. You need ministry. These donations are $10,000. Someone gives you $10,000 right now, or $10,000 right now.

Where does it go? Tell our listeners. Tell our listeners.

Sure. Well, Walk Through the Bible is a ministry that's currently doing work in 139 countries around the world, which is a pretty amazing thing to think about. 40 years ago, we started in a classroom, and 40 years later, we're in 139 countries around the world. And all around the world, the common core, the common foundation is the same—helping people get into God's Word, helping have that passion ignited for God's Word. And that's very different in a lot of countries, a lot of places. You think about places like Latin America or in Africa, where pastors themselves often have no training and no education. 85% of pastors in the Global South have no formal religious training or education. And so Walk Through the Bible can go into places like that and can provide resources and tools to pastors and church leaders so that they begin to effectively teach and preach God's Word to people in need.

So you're equipping the local guys, the indigenous guys? Absolutely. What's the website, folks, to find out more? www.walkthrough.org. If you want to support a Word-based ministry, if you want to learn more, have them come to your church, right? Lisa, the team, will come out, do trainings. It's awesome.

The kids will love it, because a lot of this is incorporated there, where you're teaching kids visually to appreciate, to articulate, and to digest the Word of God. Yes, absolutely. Awesome. So can you give the website one more time?

www.walkthrough.org. I love it. Thanks for being on. God bless you, Mike. Thanks for all you're doing. Thanks, Steve.

Walk Through the Bible. Folks, get the Word. Don't take my Word for it. Take His Word.

Pick it up. This fellow named Gideon has been crazy. I don't know, he's put these million-dollar books right next to beds in the hotel room.

Go grab that thing. One of those people is my own pastor, who grabbed that Gideon Bible, and God transformed his life. He had already been a believer, but kind of getting away from God in another career, and God just brought him right back to a Gideon Bible.

I mean, just stuff like that. It's the only book that happens. I've interviewed death row convicts, who literally changed. The guy stole a New Testament, and it transformed his life. All he did is read it, and all of a sudden, uh-oh, it's over. Uh-oh, it's over. Yeah.

See? The Word of God. Thank you so much. Thank you, Steve. This is the Truth Network. This is the Truth Network.