Transcript
Speaker: And let's develop it into really kind of a soul care type Bible, right? Soul care, specifically with a counseling lens, wanting to help readers see how the Bible literally has wisdom for every life topic.
Speaker: I'm Rush Witt and you're listening to Straight to the Heart, a podcast from New Growth Press. Each episode includes thought -provoking conversations with leading Christian writers and thinkers. We hear who they are, what they believe, how they approach their work in ministry, and the moments in people who have changed their lives. In Straight to the Heart, we go beyond the books to connect with the remarkable people behind them.
Speaker: We're well into our second season, so thank you for listening, sharing, and subscribing to Straight to the Heart. In this episode, I meet up with Andy McClain, Bible publisher at LifeWay Christian Resources, and a key leader among the team responsible for the Christian Standard Bible.
Speaker: Have you ever wondered why we have so many Bibles? And if you're like me, you've probably not thought much about how your Bible has come to be. So we talk about how Bibles are developed, published and printed, and we give special attention to a new one called the Life Council Bible, which contains numerous articles and other tools for counseling. Andy is a good friend and we had a great conversation. This is Straight to the Heart.
Speaker: Actually, the place that I would start is, you know, obviously we we go back a while, but there's a big gap in my memory or knowledge of your life from seminary and early church days. And then there's a gap there where I know I knew you were somewhere else and I knew it had to do with books or bibles and life way. But I didn't really know what that what was going on until we've kind of reconnected recently.
Speaker: you know, about the Life Council Bible. So what is in that gap? What's been, what happened in your life from back then to now and the work that you're doing now? Yeah, between seminary and then when we kind of picked things up with the Life Council Bible. And obviously, you know, we were at the same church in the Wake Forest area.
Speaker: And so after the MDIP, I went straight into my THM studies and it was sort of at the tail end of our THM, my THM studies that, uh, got, I got married. And so, uh, one of the major highlights of my life. And so the opportunity at Life Weight came, came open. And so, you know, that was, uh, an opportunity.
Speaker: It was a unique opportunity because they were about to launch this curriculum called the Gospel Project. It was going to be a new emphasis in terms of sort of the life way, ongoing material, the study of the Bible in a different way. They have all these other great ongoing lines that have been around for years with different starting points. So for groups that kind of want to do more topical studies and so they have this ongoing Bible study called Bible Studies for Life. If they want to do more
Speaker: expositional book -by -book studies and explore the Bible would be a great choice for you. But this was new. They sensed that there's a growing demand for something a little bit more theologically robust in terms of an ongoing curriculum.
Speaker: didn't know how it was going to be received. Ed Stetzer thought that maybe 20 ,000 people would want to study the Bible in this way. We saw the Lord move in pretty incredible ways. Over a million people were using the curriculum. A million people? Yeah. Wow. I have questions. Hopefully my questions are interesting to other people.
Speaker: But a lot of times my questions are grounded in things I feel like I don't know and I should know. So here's one. So what exactly does it mean to be the Bible publisher? So the majority of the work itself has to do with sort of leading sort of the vertical of Bibles reference and commentaries and the team that sort of works on all of those titles.
Speaker: And so from a publishing perspective you know it's helping with the product ideation it's sort of leading the publishing strategy. It is working with author acquisition and agents you know to find the right voices you know associated with the different titles that we publish and so just so there's a very much sort of this publishing component that kinda goes with the publisher role.
Speaker: For us, because of the way that we kind of have our vertical set up in our publishing house, it also entails just leading the business aspect of our ministry. So we're nonprofit, we're a ministry first, but we're a ministry that's based upon a business model. And so obviously if the business is doing okay, then that means we get to further the ministry and continue the ministry and find additional ways to sort of scale out our ministry.
Speaker: And so they're very much as kind of a business component to that, obviously kind of looking at our portfolio, trying to come up with budgets, meet our budgets, manage inventory, all of that kind of goes into that aspect of it as well. And then because it's a Bible publisher position,
Speaker: I do get to be afforded the unique opportunity of helping lead out translation awareness and growth of the CSP, which is our proprietary translation. And so working closely with our translation oversight committee and our marketing team, you know, there's a lot of fun stuff that we get to do around sort of just stewarding.
Speaker: a major English translation, which is such a gift. It's not lost on any of us what a unique and great stewardship that is that entails. And so we're really proud of that.
Speaker: So for the average listener who probably doesn't know, how would you briefly explain the way that a translation of the Bible comes into existence? And maybe even using the Christian Standard Bible as an example of what features within it make it unique in its own right and or valuable in its own right?
Speaker: So Bible publishing is very different in some regards from other trade publishing. So like books, for instance. And so, you know, it's not a short runway to produce a book. Obviously, you know, it takes time to acquire the right voice and author with a particular message. Long form writing takes time to develop and then edit and then copy edit and typeset that material.
Speaker: But the runway is very much accentuated when it comes to Bible publishing. And so, whereas, you know, it might take a book one or two years to kind of see that kind of fruition, it could take a lot, lot longer for Bible. I mean, think about creating a study Bible from scratch. I mean, you literally could be working with over a hundred different contributors and their timelines. And when, you know, these academic scholars can get their manuscripts in,
Speaker: It takes time to kind of edit that for theological precision. It takes time to copy edit that according to... That's like a ton of work. Yeah, brand guidelines. And then just typesetting it, you know, takes six months in and of itself. And then, you know, just usually printing overseas, etc. So it can take some time. It's hard work, but it's incredibly meaningful work.
Speaker: And so it's one thing to sort of be in the Bible publishing business, but it is something entirely different to creating your own Bible translation. And so that's why not every publishing house is trying to do that. And there's good reasons for why it's not needed, right? There's some really great translations out there available in the English.
Speaker: Um, and so, but for, um, for us, you know, this, this began years ago, back in the nineties, actually. So this well preceded me. And, um, you know, at, at the time, the way that I like to describe it to people is that I remember in college,
Speaker: around 2000 -2001. I remember working in the Christian Book Store, and then I was, because I was pursuing an undergrad Bible degree, for some reason management thought befitting to put me into the Bible department so that every time somebody came in looking for a Bible and they asked, hey look, why different translations?
Speaker: I would be the one to kind of coach them on the different translation philosophies of the translations available at the time.
Speaker: And at that time, it was pretty binary. Translations tend to either fall into two camps. Here's the translation spectrum. You have those on the one end that they're more formal and word for word. Those that kind of go for a very literal rendering of the Greek and the Hebrew and its approximation in English. Or you have those on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Speaker: And those tend to be more dynamic and thought for thought. They try to do a little bit of the trend interpretive work inside the translation itself. And so that was that was it. I mean, that was, you know, we have, you know, NASBI on the one end and NIV on the other, you know, or, you know, when the ESV was released, you know, that would kind of be on the more formal camp as well.
Speaker: And that was pretty much the talking points, but it really isn't quite that easy.
Speaker: really every translation is trying to accomplish both of those things. All of them are trying to obviously be faithful to the original meaning of the text, of the original languages, but also they're trying to make it readable, you know, and trying to make it understandable in English. And so every one of them, you know, does kind of fall on the spectrum. Some of them tend to
Speaker: do one of those things better than the other. But all of them are trying to do both of those to some degree. And so, Lifeway at the Time was looking to
Speaker: kind of produce the best of both worlds translation, one that was highly accurate, highly attached to the original meaning, but also just incredibly readable at the same time. And so that work began in the 90s, like I said.
Speaker: And they brought together a team of over 100 different scholars representing 17 different denominations. And so it was a very denominationally diverse group. And I love that aspect of it because it was meant to be sort of a translation for the church. And so
Speaker: That work began and they finished it they finished the new testament in the old testament they released the bible and it was formally called the h c s b and so you may be familiar with that remember.
Speaker: I think everybody wants to be in the loop. Well, let me bring you into an exciting loop and preview for you the Life Council Bible full of practical wisdom for all of life. The CSB Life Council Bible has been developed in partnership with New Growth Press.
Speaker: and it's designed to equip readers with biblical truth and counsel on a wide range of topics and tough life issues related to relationships, marriage, parenting, and more. This Bible is full of useful tools and resources for life application and discipleship grounded in the truth of the gospel of grace.
Speaker: We all need hope in the midst of challenging seasons of life. And there is hope. With more than 150 full -length articles from respected Christian counselors and scholars, the Life Council Bible will become a key tool in your own life and caring for the souls of others. So I've seen, I'm afraid that by asking this question it's going to ruin something for me.
Speaker: I've seen online some really short documentaries about how Bibles are printed. And the documentaries communicated or seem to say that the Bibles were all printed in a special place in the world. And they're only made there and they're made in this, and maybe it's the kind of binding or something, but this special process and it was very,
Speaker: It had a real mystique to it. Is that true? Are Bibles all printed? It would be somewhere, you know, somewhere Dutch. It would be somewhere in Europe. And there's like this special place and it's almost like
Speaker: a lab where everything is carefully crafted and stitched and white gloved and all that. So I guess my question then is how are Bibles printed and where does my Bible come from?
Speaker: Yeah. So I wonder if the video that you saw maybe was from a particular publisher who only prints in the Netherlands. You know, I think that's kind of what it sounded like. Yeah. Uh, so there, there is one, uh, there, so, so the reality is, um, there's not, there's only a handful of Bible printers in the world. There's only a handful of printers capable of printing a Bible and printing it, you know,
Speaker: Well and you know there's different obviously the degrees i mean there's some printers here in the u s i can do value additions additions that are sort of economically priced in terms of like.
Speaker: Additions that you would pay a little bit more money for that has a little bit more of a better binding Smith's on binding versus kind of a glue binding or you know that has some more more Durability in terms of like covers, you know with our leather touch like a P material or maybe a genuine leather or like a cloth overboard obviously, there's lots of different cover options for
Speaker: for Bibles. But yeah, the reality is there's only a handful of places in the world, and pretty much all the Bible publishers kind of use these places, depending upon what type of Bible that they're publishing. So yeah, you could have a Bible that's printed in China, you could have one that's printed in the Netherlands, you could have one that's printed in South Korea,
Speaker: or India or Brazil or even here in the US. But again, there's the places that are capable of printing and binding quality Bibles is few and far between. Do people ask you as a Bible publisher, why in the world do we have so many Bibles and why do we keep coming out with new Bibles all the time?
Speaker: Yeah, that is a question I've gotten before. And, you know, typically I like to say, one, the reason we have different Bibles is because number one, there are different age groups, right? So a Bible for an adult is going to be very different from a kid's Bible. But also, and I think that this is probably kind of going more to the point of what they're they're asking. I think that there are different types of Bibles for just different seasons of discipleship.
Speaker: And there are different ways of engaging with scripture during those seasons of discipleship. So in other words, you know, I think that there's justification for obviously, you know, someone having like a traditional flagship study Bible, you know, from a publishing house. And, you know, maybe that's sort of their go to resource for when they're doing more in depth, exegetical work, you know, when it comes when they turn to scripture.
Speaker: But it's probably not the same Bible that they're carrying a church with them just because of the size of it. And it may not just sort of be their everyday reading Bible either. Perhaps there's another reason that they also have a Bible by Spurgeon, because not only do they want to hear what modern scholars have to say about the text, but maybe they're trying to, maybe they benefit at this season of their life.
Speaker: from a little bit of a historical retrieval of the Prince of Preachers, you know, and what he had to say on the various books of the Bible. There's different reasons for why people have note -taking Bibles, right? So they could absolutely sort of have a note -taking Bible and kind of work through that. My wife typically has kind of created a rhythm, an annual rhythm in her life where she's almost doing
Speaker: she has been doing like a note -taking Bible per year, you know, through her one -year reading plan. And so, you know, that's kind of, you know, something that she does as part of her spiritual discipline of just, you know, being in the Word every day. But that, but it also doesn't take the place of, you know, her more in -depth study Bible, you know, that she has, that she can kind of turn to when she needs a little bit additional contacts from some trustworthy sources. And so,
Speaker: So I think, I think it, yeah, so I think it depends. I think it depends on where you are in terms of your, um, um, where you are in your discipleship process. You know, maybe for a new believer, it's going to be more of an entry level type study Bible, something that's a little bit more concise. That's not overwhelming. Yeah. And then, you know, maybe that's, maybe that's different though, for your more seasoned
Speaker: a Bible reader who has a lot of biblical literacy. They've been a Christian for some time, but maybe they need something that's a little bit different. I remember talking to an older pastor once and he had a practice that I really admired. I haven't done it for probably discipline reasons, lack of discipline, but he would read through the Bible every year.
Speaker: And he had a certain way of making notes in the Bible, of what he would circle or underline, and he would work all the way through the year, and then he would give it away to a nephew or someone for Christmas. And he did it every year, and I think he probably did that every year for 30 or 40 years. And every year he would give the Bible away and start again. And that's a story that just has always stuck with me in terms of
Speaker: You know, the value of being willing to have a new Bible. Sometimes, like I said earlier, people feel like, well, I need to have a Bible, stick with it, and I'll never let it go or never replace it. But, you know, I thought that was a really profound and beautiful way to
Speaker: hand on truth to the next generation in his family and other people in his life. And it kind of goes to your point about the need for lots of Bibles, you know, and that people could use multiple Bibles in their life more than maybe we expect. Does your wife do that at all? Does she pass the Bible along or?
Speaker: Yeah. So it's funny that you mentioned that because we've heard of other people doing the same thing. And so that's kind of what I mean, it didn't necessarily, uh, wasn't the catalyst for her starting that, but then we did sort of retrospectively say, you know what, I think we could maybe once you get four done, you know, we can pass these off to our kids and kind of gifted to them. Very special. Yeah. That would be, that would be cool. So.
Speaker: This is a good time to tell you about our growing collection of counseling mini -books. Mini -books are frequently used by churches and counseling ministries and organizations to quickly provide counsel that meets people where they are. You can purchase mini -books individually according to specific topics which are most important or useful to you, or you can purchase them as sample packs.
Speaker: For instance, our Personal Growth mini -book sample pack features one each of 37 New Growth Press mini -book titles. In it, you'll find a wealth of gospel -based, biblical direction for personal and spiritual growth. Issues like grief, forgiveness, conflict, temptation, guilt, bitterness, and many others offer individuals direction and help for both life -changing issues and everyday problems.
Speaker: Each mini book is small enough for the average reader to finish in less than 30 minutes and is filled with the practical help that pastors, counselors, and believers around the world have come to trust. To learn more about our counseling mini books, visit NewGrowthPress .com.
Speaker: It was really great to work with you and LifeWay to see this come together because at New Growth Press we had wanted and thought for a long time and I had thought for a long time about how something like a counseling oriented Bible could come into existence and then the ability to use content from like the counseling mini books at New Growth was just a really fitting way to make that happen.
Speaker: But I didn't see any of that process. So I gone again, sort of like I have it with your life. Like I see this part and then there's this blank section and then it picks up, you know, the story picks up again. So with the Life Council Bible, there is this plan, there's a partnership and then
Speaker: All of a sudden, months later, here's this Bible that's beautiful. It has been edited. The many books have all been crafted down to articles. And I'd like to hear how that happened specifically with that content coming in and how
Speaker: I'm assuming a team of editors are working through so many pages of many book content to make it accessible in the Bible. How do they pull that off? Yeah, so it did. It happened primarily with a team of internal editors. And so, you know, we have such a great team. Um, you know, we, which, which makes the hard work even more meaningful, you know, when you have a great team to kind of do it with.
Speaker: And so these are internal editors. I mean, they're all part of the guild. They all have their PhDs, one in Old Testament, one in New Testament, one in sort of biblical theology, systematic theology. So they, you know, they know their stuff and they've been doing publishing for a long time. And so we,
Speaker: You know, we obviously kind of developed a plan on the front end to say, okay, like, okay, we, we have this sort of source content that's available to us. And, you know, it may be, I don't know if everybody is aware yet of sort of the life council Bible itself, but you know, the whole purpose of it was to kind of, to take this rich biblical literature that's out there that you guys have produced, um, from an expert list of contributors.
Speaker: and let's develop it into really kind of a soul care type Bible, right? Soul care, specifically with a counseling lens, wanting to help readers see how the Bible literally has wisdom for every life topic that they can encounter for the most part. I mean, if you look at the list of topics that these articles cover, I mean, I'm not exaggerating. I feel like
Speaker: I don't know if you would encounter something else or something different or if we could add to it. I'm sure that there are, there's always something new, but it does feel pretty exhaustive. And there really hasn't been a Bible that does it. And some of these are real, real hard topics to address, but how can we apply biblical principles to these issues in ways that are Christ honoring, in ways that are practical, in ways that are just pastorally helpful?
Speaker: And so that was sort of our starting point. We have the source content. What does this need to look like? What does the word count sort of need to be around? We obviously didn't want to just pull the very practical handles that, you know, that's typically sort of found at the tail end of these, of these mini books, right? Sort of just the, hey look, you know, because of this topic, you know,
Speaker: Here's some practical suggestions on how to go about maybe next steps. We didn't want it to be like a very prescriptive, just pragmatism type article. We wanted to incorporate a lot of the biblical rootedness that these authors have taken time to address within the text itself. And so they're all kind of rooted near sort of a chair text.
Speaker: And, you know, it obviously kind of deals with a lot of the exposition around this text, but also kind of draws out in a very practical and application oriented way how to sort of go about, you know, addressing this topic in your life and in biblical ways. And so, so, you know, I mean, we, so we, you know, kind of working with you guys, we kind of identify, hey, look, this is the formula that we want to sort of accomplish. This is the heart behind it.
Speaker: It was the work of just some great team members that was able to pull that off. Is it too soon in the process for you to have heard back from people who have used the Bible, the Life Council Bible, and to hear their testimony of how they're using it or how it's helping them? When does that typically happen when you produce a Bible, and have you heard some of that yet?
Speaker: I have heard some of it yet. I have, you know, anecdotally, it's come from a number of places. But, you know, one that really stands out is, you know, there's a whole camp of men and women out there that do Bible reviews. And so, you know, it's fascinating to watch these Bible reviews that they do. And so they basically review Bibles from all the different publishing houses.
Speaker: And these people are experts. They know materials just as good as some of our team members. They just know Bibles. They know the ins and outs. They can get into the weeds of
Speaker: you know, what this opacity is versus, you know, maybe what, uh, you know, um, this, this type of, uh, binding versus this, this other type of mind, it's, it's pretty impressive. And so they do a good job, both from like sort of the, the craftsmanship angle and sort of the procurement, you know, the production angle, but also, you know, they, they do a pretty terrific job just in terms of like, okay. So, um, you know, from a more substantive point of view, a content point of view, they can, they can weigh in.
Speaker: pretty nicely on that and it's pretty insightful. I do recall one of the guys, he's got a pretty big platform of Bible reviews and he mentioned that this is perhaps the most significant Bible that he's ever reviewed. And I was just struck by that. He's obviously reviewed hundreds of Bibles before.
Speaker: But I think he was really impressed with just what we were trying to accomplish, addressing a real felt need within the market, but just something that our churches need, something that Christians need.
Speaker: And so he recognize what we were trying to accomplish and then just the rich reservoir of individuals we were able to utilize to be a part of this project based on our partnership with you guys. And so I think all of that sort of cumulatively he was impressed with.
Speaker: yeah i was i love hearing that i was that's a great example so i want you to do something then. I really appreciate i appreciate the time that we've been able to talk today and i want you to do something i want you to receive my sincere gratitude.
Speaker: for the work that you do every day to ensure that more and useful Bibles are entering the world and getting into people's hands. And then I would like for you to take that gratitude and communicate it to whoever it should be communicated to in the team that you're leading. And I really mean that. I would like for you to tell them, nobody knows you're over there at your computer.
Speaker: making my next Bible, you know? And I really, I'm grateful for that. And I want to, and I hope that this conversation that we've had when others hear it, we'll do the same for them. They may be raising their hand and saying, you know, me too. Sure. You know, include me in that giving of gratitude. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll definitely pass that on.
Speaker: Like I said, I mentioned the work of Bible publishing, the work of publishing in general, Christian publishing, it certainly has its seasons, it's hard work. It involves a team that's just doing a lot of long hours.
Speaker: But like I said before, it's extremely meaningful work. For us, we don't see ourselves as merely a producer of Bibles, but a publisher, a publisher of discipleship resources, right? We're trying to publish Bibles and reference titles and commentaries and books, trade books, academic books, for the good of the church.
Speaker: We're not just trying to get these resources to the hands of people, but also to their hearts. And so we want to make good resources that help people move from point A to point B in terms of their walk with Jesus, their love for Jesus, their understanding of who he is and all that he's done for them.
Speaker: Um, and so we, we, we appreciate that. It's been such a pleasure to partner with you guys and the creation of, you know, the life council Bible, which it was such a, this, I think that this is going to be, I think that there's, there's those projects that you work on. You kind of look back on, uh, over your career and you're like.
Speaker: You know, wow. Okay. That was, that was significant. Yeah. Yeah. Very special though. So thank you for listening to this episode of straight to the heart next week. I explore our seasons of sorrow with Tim chalice. You won't want to miss this episode and I hope to see you there to learn more about this podcast and many other resources from new growth press visit new growth, press .com.
