How to Read the Bible Like a Human Being: Connecting with Jesus in Your Emotional Brain

There's a whole new world of revelation waiting for you when you discover how to study scripture with your emotional brain. Half of your mind thinks in pictures (it's why Jesus told stories). That's the half that connects Jesus' experiences to your own and lets you identify with characters in the bible, making them come alive to your heart. Unless you intentionally visualize what's going on while you study, you're missing out on: Having both sides of your mind renewed by the Word of God. Experiencing Jesus' human side. Meeting him in his culture and his everyday world. Bonding deeply with him around your shared experiences. Feeling the emotions he experienced in life. How to Read the Bible Like a Human Being is a set of tools for studying scripture in a whole new way: through visualization, emotional identification and story. For example, take the passage where Jesus stilled the storm. With this method, you'll ask a completely different set of questions, like: Visual Questions: "After eight hours out in the choppy waves on a fifty-degree night, what bodily sensations were the disciples experiencing?" Human Questions: "If you were stuck on that sinking ship, what would you be saying to the professional fisherman who'd led you into that catastrophe? What words might Peter have hurled back at you?" Emotion Questions: "Most people in those days couldn't swim. How does that change your picture of what the disciples were feeling as their ship started to take on water?" And you'll identify with Jesus' experience, too: "When Jesus walked on the water, the disciples' boat was four miles out on the lake. Did Jesus have some fun on that 90-minute walk? What would you have tried if you were him?" Based on three years of intensive research into the material culture and everyday lives of first century Jews, plus a lifetime of working with the emotional brain, How to Read the Bible Like a Human Being will change how you experience scripture forever. Jesus, Peter, John and the other disciples will become more real, tangible and accessible to your heart. And since your emotional brain is the part of you that brings the fun, you'll enjoy studying the bible more than ever, too! "When I read the bible now, the passages I've studied this way are in 3-D. Everything else is just flat and two-dimensional." --A.B.