By Anne W. Semmes
The Rev’d Marek Zabriskie is inspired to invite his Christ Church Greenwich congregation and more to a “Bible Challenge,” to read together the Bible in one year, beginning January 1, 2025. As founder of The Bible Challenge and the Center for Biblical Studies, he’s done this successfully before in his previous parish of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Fort Washington, PA (a suburb of Philadelphia), where he served as rector for 23 years. “We had over 200 members of our church and 180 people from outside the church who joined us that first year.”
Zabriskie, now in his seventh year as rector of an impressively growing church with now 1,800-plus active members, wishes to engage his congregation to read every day a selection he has chosen from the Bible consisting of three chapters of the Old Testament, one Psalm, and one chapter of the New Testament, “with no reading on Sunday, because we’ll assume you’ll be in church to hear the scriptures read aloud.”
“So, it became a six-day-a-week spiritual practice for folks that took them generally about 30 minutes a day to do this,” told Zabriskie. “Some had spent an hour on the read, wanting to ponder things more. Some said, ‘I do it in 20 minutes.’ It’s no race. Some people told me that it would take them two years to do it all, and I said, that’s terrific because you’ll probably get more out of it than people who race through it.”
But there is another less challenging option. “You can read just the New Testament in a year,” told Zabriskie. And add to that daily read a Proverb or a Psalm. “And this will be ten minutes a day,” he noted.
Whichever challenge choice, the Rev’d said, “By doing a little bit every day, it’s transformational. I’ve studied the impact of reading scripture on people’s lives…and the studies show that that changes our moral behavior, and it strengthens our faith.” As a rector he’d been taught to “get them into church on Sunday and that will take care of the rest.” “The problem with that” he said, “is the average mainline Christian goes to church once a month.”
And with that invitation Zabriskie is recommending “that people make a spiritual New Year’s resolution” to read the Bible in one year.
“It’s not going on a pilgrimage. It’s not attending church every Sunday. It’s not practicing centering prayer or saying prayers each day. It’s regular engagement with scripture.”
Choosing a Bible
So, what Bible does he recommend? “We’ll be recommending the ‘New Oxford Annotated Bible’ which is a New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.” [available at the Church’s Dogwood Books store]. “We actively don’t recommend the King James version of the Bible.” added the Rev’d. “It was published in 1611, and the language is beautiful, but it’s antiquated language. And reading scripture is difficult enough. Trying to read it in a translation that was done in 1611 makes it doubly difficult.”
And what about those difficulties in interpreting scripture? Indeed, responded Zabriskie. “There are challenges in terms of how to interpret this material, how to process it, images of God, concerns about violence or suffering in scripture. Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? It really gets us thinking at a deep level about the nature of God and about the nature of human beings, but ultimately it helps strengthen people’s faith enormously. But they have to learn how to read an ancient text because it’s not written like “The New York Times” or the “Wall Street Journal.”
There’s a lot to communicate about this,” noted the Rev’d. “We’re going to be sending out information to everyone about it. There will be gatherings once a week for the first six weeks or on Zoom with me and our clergy where they can ask questions and hear what others are saying.” And “If people get through that for six weeks successfully, there’s a good chance they’ll continue to do the rest on their own. We’re not going to hold their hand every single day. It’s not that complicated.”
Addressing the Bible selections he said, “It contains a lot of different varieties of literature, myth, legend, history, biography, autobiography, poetry, song. It’s all incorporated in there, and so you just don’t read it like it’s an historical account from beginning to end.” Thus, the daily selection includes “some of the New Testament because there are portions of the Old Testament that get extremely dry and boring. And many people say, I was reading every word until I got to Leviticus, and I gave up. And that is not what we want to have happen.”
Also recommended for those Bible readings, “We talk about the importance of setting some kind of routine, reading the Bible at the same time every day in the same place. Then when you sit down in a particular chair in your house or out on your back porch or in your garden, there’s a sense of familiarity and your soul just kind of rests and expects. This is how I have my one-on-one time with God via the Bible.”
And the Rev’d is offering “to do some emailing back and forth when people have questions, and we’re going to set up a process where all of our clergy can participate, where we’ll be available to meet with people once a week.”
Bible Challenge Support
“We’re also working on an app, so you can read the selections on your phone. You can open your eyes in the morning like many of us do and look at your phone and take that 10 or 15 or 20 minutes lying down with a cup of coffee. And there’s a possibility we can do an audio app so you can listen to it in your car driving to work or taking your kids to school.”
For further support Zabriskie shared, “We’re going to have biblical scholars and our clergy giving talks in the Forum throughout the coming year. So, people who come to Christ Church on Sunday morning for worship at 10 or just coming to the Forum at 11:15 we’ll have a 45-minute Bible-centered talk that will open their eyes to important things in the scripture.”
So, looking back to his first Bible Challenge launch in 2011 of “Reading the Bible in a year” how had he seen the impact on his congregation in Pennsylvania over the years. “For that church,” he said, “Many people said this was the most significant thing they ever did spiritually in their life. It increased their interest in learning more about scripture and the Christian faith.”
“Many people said they thought the Bible Challenge was so significant for our congregation that it united the parish behind one spiritual endeavor and made people extremely excited about what church and what God meant in their life. We’ve had over a million people around the world use this Bible Challenge to read the Bible.”
For more information on Rev’d Marek Zabriskie’s Bible Challenge contact: biblechallenge@christchurchgreenwich.org
