Earlier this year, Crossway released several new audio Bibles, designed to offer God's people

yet one more way to engage deeply with God's word as they hear it read aloud. But what was it like

to actually create such a recording? What would it be like to read the whole Bible aloud? One verse at a time.

Well, over the past few months, we've released two interviews in this series, the first with

recording artist Jackie Hill Perry, and the second with Pastor Ray Ortland. Today I'm speaking

with Robert Smith Jr., Distinguished Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School,

where he has served for more than 25 years.

In our conversation, Robert discusses his long career in preaching and teaching God's Word,

the unique characteristics of African American preaching, and how that impacted his approach to reading scripture aloud,

and what it was like to record

the entire Bible, all 66 books, in just six weeks.

Let's get started.

Well, Robert, thank you so much for joining me today on the Crossway podcast.

Thank you, my brother. It's a joy and a privilege to be here representing Jesus. Absolutely. So I think it's fair to say that you have devoted

much of your life, a significant portion of your life, to preaching God's word and also to teaching

other people how to do the same.

You were a pastor for over two decades. You've written award-winning books on preaching.

You taught preaching at Southern Seminary and now you hold the Charles T. Carter Baptist

chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. But I actually want to go back before all of that,

before all those accomplishments. And I wonder if you can take us back to the moment that you

first realized that God was calling you to a life of preaching and teaching the Bible. When was

that? Well, it was when I was 14 years of age, I had been trained by my pastor as a junior

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