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Hey, this is John with the Bible Project Podcast and today I'm going to continue

talking with Tim on this biblical theme of reading the Bible together out loud.

Last episode we talked about the history of ancient Israel, how they read the

Torah out in their community and today we're going to look at how that practice

continued on into the New Testament with Jesus. Jesus who actually announced

his public ministry during a public greeting of scripture. In this episode we're

going to talk about key practices in the early church that helped that group

form their identity. Practices including communion also known as Last

Supper but also this practice of reading the letters of the New Testament

allowed as a group. Because you want to hear by yourself like the

Bible's weird but then when we're grouped together we're like yeah this is our

story and we're going to live by the story and I find the Christian world you

more believable. You know as a skeptical person sometimes this whole thing

feels a little bit like just group thing or brainwashing and I asked him about

that too. It is a form of identity formation called brainwashing but the point

is that the person poking holes in that is themselves exposing themselves

constantly to a different form of brainwashing of just a different story about

the world and of course the question is which of those stories offers a better

account of the human experience and of reality. So if you've ever wondered about

what early church services look like if Christianity might be some weird group

therapy stay tuned here we go.

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