The Art of Biblical Conversation: Stop Merely Reading the Bible; take its authors out for coffee instead!

The Art of Biblical Conversation encourages Bible readers to experience biblical texts deeply, as a conversation with biblical authors through their texts, and to stop merely (speed-) reading them.

Gary Collier begins by pointing out that the phrase Bible study is an over-used tag-line to cover many activities, and that many of these activities may have very little to do with the Bible itself. Three chapters focus on Spirit, Text, and Self to help readers come to grips with just what is at stake when reading biblical texts. Whereas there is a popular notion that "reading by the Spirit" somehow allows one to avoid or bypass studied attention to texts (in this way, creating a chasm between text and spirit), one of the key demonstrated emphases of this book is that "All reading of biblical texts should be Spirit-led. All!" This includes everything from academic to devotional approaches.

Collier then moves to discuss some exciting textual studies that help explain, comprehensively and readily, how the authors of biblical texts were in a continual conversation with one another, even those who preceded them by centuries, and that this was an ongoing, never-ending attempt to better comprehend and converse with God. A good deal of time is given to biblical texts to illustrate the concept of biblical conversation.

Finally, Collier introduces a tested and proven step-by-step approach for readers to become conversation partners with biblical authors through their texts–an approach that is compatible with group discussion, individual study, and many other approaches to knowing the Bible.