What You're Missing without The Bible Project

If you haven't seen any content from The Bible Project, you're missing out. Their content is some of my most cherished aids in seeing the Bible and God more clearly. Take a look at the resources below and tell me it's not some of the most incredibly clear and fun ways to soak up the truths of the Bible.

What Is The Bible Project?

To quote their About page, "The Bible Project is a non-profit animation studio that produces short-form, fully animated videos to make the biblical story accessible to everyone, everywhere. We create videos, podcasts, and study guides that explore the Bible’s unified story." To me, The Bible Project is a way of making the scripture real and fresh as ever, expanding my perspective and letting me experience God in a whole new way. Ever since I watched their first video years ago, I have found myself going back to their content over and over again.

How Can I Use The Bible Project?

I use The Bible Project's material most often to get context in my Bible reading. I wrote about how important context is in Bible reading in another post here. When I am going through a Bible reading plan and get to a new book of the Bible, I go and watch Read Scripture the video for that book (Old Testament YouTube playlist, New Testament YouTube playlist). It gives me a fresh overview of what I'm reading even if I've read the book before.

For longer books like Genesis or Revelation, it's helpful to go back to get context several times through my reading. Whenever I want to reconnect with the flow and structure of a book, I go to look up the online poster that they made for each book based on the end of the video. The poster links are located near the bottom of each book's page on their site.

For anyone interested in reading through the Bible in a year (something I do every year and highly recommend), The Read Scripture app has many of The Bible Project theme and series videos built into it, so it allows you to follow along without even bothering about finding the right video for the particular week. Just set the reminder and go through the prescribed content each day. If you take the plunge, you'll be going through the whole Bible in a year, with each day's reading ending in a Psalm. The year-long plan itself is, however, inflexible in its structure and isn't ideal if you want to read through the Bible differently every year. I will say it is great the first time around.

Exploring My Strange Bible

As a sort of side note, one of the cofounders created a podcast called Exploring My Strange Bible as a compilation of many of his prior sermons. These podcasts go into more depth about the topics they cover than you can in a couple minute video on The Bible Project. I loved his 5-part series on the book of Jonah.

My Favorite Videos (Right Now)

While all of their videos have been so helpful for me, my current favorite video series is the How to Read the Bible series. At the time of this writing they haven't completed the series, but the videos they've already made have changed the way I understand and enjoy scripture in a profoundly positive way. In understanding the types of literature in the Bible even better, I have felt more connected to what I'm reading. I knew that the Bible was made up of a variety of writing styles, but having them clearly explained and connected with literary terms has clarified my thinking.

My current favorite in that series is the Plot in Biblical Narrative video. This video talks about how understanding the full plot of a particular story is essential to understanding the meanings of each scene. Did I mention they stylized the video like a comic strip?! So cool.

Question:

Which of their videos is your favorite? What other Bible studying resources have you found to be helpful?