I still remember what was the scariest and most daunting obstacle to me for the first couple of years I began to follow Jesus: reading the Bible. Growing up, I kinda just knew that it was about God and Jesus and how to be a good person. I also knew that there was a lot of history throughout it, like stuff about kings and wars and families. All that to say, I felt pretty scared about opening up my Bible and reading it. I would use the YouVersion Bible App and read the verse of the day, try to use that to feel good about myself, and then... that was it.

That was my extent of engaging with the Bible.

I'd hear verses in sermons, but even to this day pastors seem to use the Bible like a research database, and they cite it in the most boring, MLA-citation, rigid-format way ever.

Even the first year I was at Western Washington University, and I became a part of a ministry called Campus Christian Fellowship (a ministry I still love and am a member of), I read four "books" in the Bible: Luke, Acts, 1 Corinthians, and James. I kinda got some sense of it, like the whole "Jesus died for my sins and now we have to tell people about Him and live good lives" thing. But there was still a disconnect. The Book of Revelation was still some scary, end-of-the-world nonsense that I didn't get, and I had no idea how the entire Old Testament played a role.

I have a feeling that this is how not just most college-aged Christians feel, but how most of everyone, in general, feels about the Bible. Average church-goers treat it as that reference manual to how to live a "morally good" life, and pastors don't help either, because they just cite verses from it to prove whatever point they're making in a sermon. By December of last year, I felt stuck and stagnant in how I engaged with the Bible. Why did I have to read it? What was its true purpose that apparently was supposed to be life-changing for me?

One day I came across a video that changed my entire life as a follower of Jesus. I watched a video called "What Is The Bible" by The Bible Project.

And from there, my mind was blown.

I had never heard anyone really describe what the Bible is besides the boring, stereotypical answers that really don't mean much to overly-religious-saturated people: "The Bible is God's Divine Word" or "The Bible is Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth" (and that acronym is both heretical and corny).

In reality, all I truly needed to hear was Dr. Tim Mackie (one of the creators and driving forces of The Bible Project) say "The Bible is a small library of literature that tells a unified story that leads to Jesus and has profound wisdom for the modern world."

Boom. Mind = Blown. It all made sense to me.

The Bible is an epic narrative of God's mission to save and redeem our world. The book literally starts with "In the beginning..." (Genesis 1:1 NIV) AKA "once upon a time..." or "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." and ends its final literary setting with "and they will reign forever and ever" (Revelation 22:5 NIV) AKA "and they lived happily every after."

It's one connected story, showing how God is working throughout history to unify Heaven (God's space) and Earth (human space).

I want everyone reading this to "hear" me loud and clear: I'm not saying all of this just because I'm majoring in English Literature and this is just "my way of seeing the Bible and this is what helps me engage with God's Word."

NO.

This is how we need to be engaging with The Bible. This is the game-changer: showing those navigating their faith that every page of the Bible is truly connected, that it's a part of one grand, unified story that leads us to why we need to follow Jesus.

For college students, this is especially important. This makes the Old Testament not just "less scary" to read; this should make every book of the Bible relevant to them, as they begin to read each small (probably confusing) book in the larger context of this overarching narrative.

The more we use the Bible as a reference manual to just cite why we believe what we believe, the more we send the message that it's OK to engage with the Bible as a daily, people- and doctrine-pleasing book of sayings and rules.

But the more we encourage students to see the Bible as what it is (a small library of different kinds of literature but tells one unified story that leads to Jesus and has profound wisdom for the modern world), the easier it will be to unlock their excitement to engage with The Bible.

As each book and story and character they find in the Scriptures becomes not only relevant, but essential, they will find that their life story of following Jesus is a crucial part of this story that The Bible is all about.

If we fail to show this, we fail to show how their life truly is connected to Jesus, and just how important their role is in following Him!