What kind of book is 15NTWL and who is it for? It’s for anyone who wants to understand how the Bible speaks to our everyday lives. I chose 15 big theological words in the New Testament—like peace, life, righteousness, holiness, grace, love—and I explain what I understand them to mean in the Old and New Testaments. And then I address how we might process how they affect our real lives today. The Bible wasn’t written as a manual for going to heaven. The books of the Bible, for the most part, were written to guide us in our devotion to God and show us how to live good, loving, justice-seeking, mercy-filled lives in Christian community and among our neighbors.. 

Most of the time, the biblical writers were not using “religious” speech. They were using everyday language about things we all care about like friendship, family, work, love, loss, hope, war, success, failure, and happiness. Our English translations sometimes obscure that fact. I think we need to do a better job of allowing our English translations to reflect that. (No more “Christianese,” please.)

So, I wrote 15NTWL for “Bible nerds” who desperately want to connect “New Testament theology” to “real life.” But I would like to offer some options for how this book might be used in different contexts: classroom, church, and community group. 

Textbook

My first instinct was to write 15NTWL as a textbook for Christian colleges and seminaries. Truth be told, most NT introductions are helpful with technical information, but don’t get much into the theology of the New Testament, and almost never do they dig into “real life.” They keep theological discussions in the abstract, often focusing on the ancient past or the “eschaton.” I don’t fault such textbooks for that, they are designed to convey this kind of information, like a history book. But my experience over almost 15 years of teaching is that students are interested in the nerdy details and they want to connect these matters to everyday life today. So, I purposely designed my book to be very short (~200 pages). It can easily be added to a course syllabus to supplement a traditional NT intro. My book allows teachers and students to process the relevance of the biblical material for faith, calling, work, community, and the ups and downs of life.

Sermon Series

While I didn’t design 15NTWL as a guide to preaching Scripture, it does lend itself to serving as the blueprint for a sermon series on key theological concepts in the New Testament. It could be a 15-week series—one theological word per week—but that seems like a very long series. Churches could just choose 12 words or 10 or 8. My home church does something called the “Big Read” where they tie a sermon series to a book that they encourage church folks to read the book as a companion. I think this book could easily fit that approach. 15NTWL is technically an “academic book,” but I tried my best to write it in a style that would be attractive and easy to read for non-academics.

Bible Study

Given some of the things I have explained above, I would be very glad to see 15NTWL used as a small group Bible study. I tied each theological term to a book of the New Testament (e.g., righteousness in Matthew, grace in Ephesians, holiness in 1 Peter). Bible study participants could read the NT text and the book chapter from 15NTWL—each of my chapters are very short, ~15 pages. I tried to use anecdotes and illustrations from pop culture and everyday life to make it as easy as possible to process the meaning of the theological term for real life.

And, of course, there is plain old “personal study.” There is no harm in reading the book on your own for personal interest. Again, I purposely made it short and pretty “to the point” so it is an “easy yes” for interested readers. However you use it, if you read it, I would be honored.

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