Michael Williams says he experienced the grace of God in a powerful and intense way while serving on a United States Navy submarine.
Patrolling underwater and filled with this amazing experience of grace, Williams says he felt and followed a calling from God to spend long hours studying the Bible.
Now a professor of Old Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS), Williams recalls the significance of the time he spent learning about Jesus in the recesses of the ocean in a new book titled How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens: A Guide to Christ-Focused Reading of Scripture.
Published by Zondervan, the book reflects the journey of understanding that Williams began on the submarine. He leads readers on a tour through each book of the Bible, in part showing how stories, prophecies, events, and personalities in the Old Testament all point to the coming of Christ and the salvation he brought.
Williams wrote the book not simply as a scholarly endeavor but as a resource to help Bible teachers, ministry leaders, Bible study groups, students, and others to better comprehend what he has come to see as the majestic, God-driven flow of biblical history.
Meanwhile, Dean B. Deppe, professor of New Testament at CTS, has also written a book with a biblical theme: All Roads Lead to the Text: Eight Methods of Inquiry into the Bible. The book is published by Eerdmans.
Deppe served several Christian Reformed congregations as pastor and has also taught in a variety of settings, including in Classis Red Mesa in New Mexico, Asian Theological Seminary in the Philippines, and now at CTS.
Deppe’s book focuses on eight different methods biblical scholars use—from analyzing literary, grammatical, and structural elements to investigating historical and cultural backgrounds to exploring the history of interpretation.
He explains each approach in a user-friendly way, using examples from Old and New Testament texts. Every chapter concludes with practical, text-based questions for study and discussion.
