Read Your Bible!

In 1926, the 20-year-old American swimmer Trudy Ederle attempted to become the first woman to swim the English Channel. After 11 hours in freezing, jellyfish-stung water, she was just five miles from England’s shore when night fell and fog rolled in. Disoriented and losing hope, she couldn’t see where she was going—until townspeople lit bonfires on the cliffs, and those flames showed her which direction to swim. Alan Shlemon uses this story as a metaphor for why Christians should read the Bible: it is a guiding beacon that tells you where you are and where you need to go.

Shlemon’s central argument in this solo episode of Thinking Out Loud is that daily Bible reading should be a priority, not something reserved for crises. He offers three reasons: to know God, to know your place in the world, and to navigate culture. The episode is structured as a brief, practical exhortation rather than a deep theological lecture, and Shlemon is careful to note that these three reasons are not exhaustive.

Knowing God through his own self-revelation