Faith Foundations Restored
A Living Word
Interview with Will Bourne
The conversation begins with a familiar object held in unfamiliar tension: a Bible that has been loved, memorized, defended, and sometimes used in ways that made the reader afraid to open it. The words remain sacred, but the experience surrounding them may carry pressure, shame, or the memory of being silenced.
Will Bourne does not ask readers to abandon Scripture. He invites them to return with reverence, courage, and attention to Jesus. The exchange considers authority, interpretation, difficult passages, human misuse, the Spirit, community, questions, obedience, and the kind of fruit faithful reading should form.
Why did you feel compelled to write A Living Word?
I wrote this book because I kept encountering people who loved God but had become afraid of the Bible. They had not rejected Scripture. In many cases, they had spent years reading it, memorizing it, defending it, and trying to obey it. Yet somewhere along the way, the Bible became associated with anxiety, accusation, control, or the fear of getting one interpretation wrong. That tension deserved to be named without treating reverence as the problem.
What does the title A Living Word mean to you?
The title speaks to the conviction that Scripture is not dead information waiting for a religious professional to activate it. God continues to address His people through what He has spoken. The Bible carries us into the story of God, bears authoritative witness to Jesus Christ, searches the heart, corrects the mind, forms moral imagination, and teaches communities how to live faithfully.
The subtitle uses the word weaponization. What exactly are you naming?
Weaponization occurs when someone borrows Scripture’s sacred authority to secure an outcome the text does not faithfully require. A verse may be used to silence a question, protect a leader, shame a wounded person, frighten a child, control a spouse, exclude a neighbor, or baptize an institutional interest. The words may come from the Bible, but the act of using them may contradict the passage, the whole scriptural witness, and the character of Christ.
You call Jesus the interpretive center. Are you placing Jesus above Scripture?
Jesus is not a rival authority competing with Scripture. He is the living Word, the fulfillment of the scriptural story, and the One to whom the whole scriptural witness points. The same triune God who gives Scripture reveals Himself in the Son. Christian reading therefore cannot treat an isolated interpretation as though it can overrule the life, teaching, cross, resurrection, and lordship of Jesus.
How should Christians approach passages that appear violent, exclusionary, or morally troubling?
They should begin by refusing two shortcuts. We should not pretend a difficult text is easy, and we should not decide in advance that it has nothing to teach us. We need context, genre, covenant location, historical setting, the movement of the whole scriptural story, and sustained attention to how the New Testament receives the passage in light of Christ.
How can churches protect biblical authority without protecting abusive authority?
They can begin by separating Scripture’s authority from a leader’s interpretation. Leaders should explain how they reached a conclusion, welcome responsible questions, and remain accountable to structures they do not personally control. Reports of harm should be taken seriously and evaluated without forcing the injured person to protect the institution.
What would you say directly to someone wounded by Scripture’s misuse?
First, I would say that your pain should not be dismissed simply because a Bible verse was involved. A sacred quotation does not automatically make an action faithful. You may need time, safety, wise counsel, or distance from the person or environment that caused harm.
What place do questions have in a mature faith?
Questions can be acts of reverence when they arise from a desire to understand and obey. Scripture itself contains lament, protest, confusion, argument, and people asking God how long, why, and where He is. Honest faith does not require pretending clarity where none exists.
What practical change do you hope readers make after finishing the book?
I hope they return to Scripture with reverence and without governing fear. I want them to read whole books, honor context and genre, remain near the Gospels, learn the story of Israel, receive apostolic instruction, and resist the temptation to make one verse carry an argument it was never meant to carry.
Why does this book lead directly into The Church Reformed?
Because our doctrine of Scripture eventually becomes a way of organizing people. If the Bible is used mainly to secure compliance, churches will reward control, silence, and unaccountable certainty. If Scripture is received as God’s living and formative word, the Church must become a community where leaders serve growth, gifts serve the common good, questions can be examined, and truth is practiced in love.
What do you hope readers remember when the interview and the book are over?
I hope they remember that the word of God was never meant to silence honest faith beneath human control. It was given to speak truth, expose lies, name sin, announce grace, train wisdom, protect the vulnerable, and call a people into holy life.
A Closing Invitation
The invitation is to return to Scripture without governing fear. Read patiently, remain near Jesus, honor context and community, and allow questions to deepen rather than destroy obedience. The Church Reformed follows because the way a community receives Scripture eventually becomes the way it organizes authority, belonging, truth, and care.
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