DEVON, Alberta, Canada, March 25, 2005 — The Bible's message has inspired many people to adapt it into many mediums over the years, a simple fact that has only served to widen its influence.
Blockbuster films have been made from Scripture, bestselling novels have been based on it, greeting cards, devotional books, self-help books, even cook books have had their basis in the Bible. Now, an Alberta pastor has adapted God's Word into poetry.
| Ephesians 3:14-21 from the Poetic Bible |
Of the indescribable riches that would you empower,
By His Spirit, through Jesus, at this very hour.
I hope that Jesus will feel at home in your heart
As you claim Him by faith and do your special part.
I also desperately pray that you all may know,
What it is like to be rooted, established and to grow.
I wish that just somehow you could get a brief grasp
Of this limitless love and begin for it to ask.
Do you think for one minute that you can comprehend
This love so magnanimous that it has no limit nor end?
How wide, how long, how deep and how high
Is this love that fills both earth and sky?
Let me tell you this love surpasses all that we know,
And if you let it -it will fill you and then overflow.
This love so amazing and still without measure,
Will be forever your gracious, generous treasure.
To Him who is able to do so much more
Than we could ever ask for-
Or even begin to dream about-
This causes me to jump up and shout.
To Him be glory and praise forever,
In the church that no one can sever.
Throughout the ages and time without end,
I'll praise Him forever and ever, Amen! |
In the Poetic Bible, Dr. Larry Froese, Pastor of Riverside Baptist Church in Devon, Alberta, adapted the entire New Testament into rhyming verse over a period of 37 months.
"Every year I read through the Bible from cover to cover just for my own nourishment," explains Froese. "I had just completed my 40th time through and was asking Him which translation to read through next (when) I sensed Him speaking to me about poetry."
That, says Froese, is how the Gospel of Matthew got started.
Froese acknowledges that the Poetic Bible is not a scholarly work, but hopes that it will still reach people with Scripture's message.
"The Bible is the Bible," he told the Devon Dispatch News, "The Truth is the Truth; this is just a new way to reach people. Jesus was a great storyteller. I'm just using another way of getting the story across."
At first, Froese believed that the audience for the Poetic Bible would mainly be Christians, but he now sees potential in it as an evangelism tool.
"I had a neighbour who does not profess faith read it in one month from cover to cover," he notes, before relating a story of an eight year-old girl who listens to the audio version every night before bed. "If this is a tool to get people into the Word, I could not be more excited."
As with most projects, the Poetic Bible had both challenging times and encouraging ones. Transcribing Romans and Hebrews proved to be quite difficult Froese says, as he found them to repeat concepts over and over in ways that were difficult to express. But when he read his favourite passage, Ephesians 3:14-21, to his fellow members of the Leduc Writers Guild, the response was overwhelmingly positive. It was that group that encouraged him to produce an audio version.
Froese plans to continue the project by putting the Old Testament into verse. Having already completed large sections of Genesis and Job, he aims to complete it in about seven years.
The Poetic Bible is available in written and audio format at the Canadian Bible Society store in Edmonton, Alberta, and through Hull Family Books in Winnipeg and Steinbach, Manitoba.
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