Bible read aloud from start to finish on campus lawn
Two Union University students find a comfortable place on the “Great Lawn” to listen to the Bible being read aloud during a six-day Scripture reading marathon. — Photos by Lauren Snead / Union University student
JACKSON — Anyone walking past Union University’s Great Lawn in recent days could hear Scripture being read aloud, played through speakers outside of a small white tent beneath Miller Tower.
As part of the 2025 Spring Bible Conference hosted by Union’s Ryan Center for Biblical Studies on March 21-22, Union held a Scripture-reading marathon in which hundreds of faculty, staff, students and community volunteers read for more than 400 slots of 10 minutes each. Over the course of six days — March 11-13 and 18-20 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. — the entire Bible was read, from Genesis to Revelation.
Ray Van Neste, dean for Union’s School of Theology and Missions, said the sounds of the public reading Scripture have already become familiar background noise to some Union students.
“One of the things that’s been very encouraging to me is how many times I’ve heard students say — or people have told me about hearing students say — how neat it has been, just to hear Scripture being read across the lawn, so just walking along and hearing it, even some on [the days where the reading wasn’t happening] saying, ‘Oh, I miss hearing the Scripture being read.’ ”
Union held a similar Scripture-reading event in 2017 for REF500, a commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Now, eight years later, they are revisiting the event.
“People really resonated with it,” Van Neste said. “You had people going in there a little worried that ten minutes might seem a little long, but once they did it, they loved it. So we thought, ‘We should do this again sometime.’ ”
Some readers enjoyed the reading experience so much that they participated multiple times.
“I had so much fun that I got to sign up again, and then one time when I was walking by, there was an open slot, and I just got to jump in and read, which was great,” Isaac Smith, a sophomore pastoral ministry major, said.
Smith enjoyed the sense of community that came with participating in the marathon.
Union University’s six-day Bible reading marathon was part of the school’s Ryan Center for Biblical Studies.
“It was a joy to get to be a part of something bigger than myself, reading the Scripture that has transcended time, along with many other people … I signed up because it was an interesting opportunity. It’s not every day that you get to read through the whole Bible with a group of people over the span of about two weeks. And it was something I wanted to be a part of,” Smith said.
Rebekah Ruth Basie, a sophomore sociology and philosophy major at Union, who read Matthew 15-17, was not sure what her reading sounded like to those passing by, but decided that did not matter.
“It was very windy and I was inside the tent, so I have no idea how I sounded or if I was even audible. But I mean, I loved it,” Basie said.
Participants read from the Pulpit Edition of the Christian Standard Bible. Publisher Broadman & Holman provided the first 300 readers with free copies of the CSB.
Van Neste expressed his hope that the Scripture-reading marathon helped the readers and the listeners to have a new kind of experience with the familiar text.
“I do think we engage Scripture differently when we read it out loud — not that it’s superior to the other way. It’s just different,” Van Neste said. “So I hope as people read it, they just have another kind of engagement with the Scriptures.”
“I think it is really meaningful for a Christian campus to be very public about reading Scripture,” Basie said. “I was encouraged by the fact that students can go about their day and going to and from class and studying and hear Scripture and just be encouraged that the Word is living and active.” B&R
Editor’s note: Bright Burns is a junior, majoring in journalism at Union University. She is the news editor for the university’s newspaper, Cardinal & Cream.
