Read the Bible Together (RBT)
RBT is a way of reading the Bible as church, trusting that the Lord speaks to us in his Word and through us to strengthen one another. Over three years we will read the whole Bible. As we read we are guided by seven questions to help us learn from the Bible what God wants us to learn. Each month we get together and share what the Spirit has been teaching us and how we have seen Christ in the Scriptures.
We meet on the Wednesday before the First Sunday of each month to share our answers. There is a 10am meeting in the morning and a 7.30pm meeting via Zoom. Our feedback often reveals that God has been emphasising particular truths, and this feeds into the sermon on the First Sunday of the month.
Introductory Leaflet here.
Three-year reading plan (2022-25) here.
Question Sheet here.
This video shows you the feedback from reading John’s Gospel in March 2024.
DECEMBER 2024: MATTHEW
In November we are reading the Gospel of Matthew. The morning Feedback meeting will be Wednesday 8th January 2025. The evening Zoom option will be 7pm on Tuesday 7th January. Before then we will make available the Introduction leaflet for January’s reading (Lamentations, Daniel and Esther) so that you can start reading it after Christmas. Otherwise we will end up with 6 weeks for Matthew and only 3 weeks for Lamentations, Daniel and Esther.
Articles about Matthew’s connection to the Old Testament:
“Jesus as Israel” - a longer article by Peter Leithart showing how Matthew repeats the whole Old Testament story, in Jesus.
“Israel recapitulated” - a shorter 2-page article by Andrew Wilson, summarising Peter Leithart’s work.
“Matthew’s Gospel as you’ve never read it before” - a medium-sized article by Patrick Schreiner, showing 3 great questions to ask when reading Matthew.
The Structure of the Sermon on the Mount
This image comes from the work of Glen Stassen. He argues that there are 14 ‘triads’ - Jesus gives us 1. The traditional teaching, 2. The vicious cycle that ensues, 3. The ‘transforming initiative’ - the ‘what to do’ to break out of the cycle. This makes the Sermon on the Mount an immensely practical source of wisdom about how to live in God’s kingdom.
