Abiding in the Word—A Weekend Well Spent

“You aren’t packing that heavy Bible, are you?” Dad asks. He’s confused why I’m adding the biggest Bible I own to my overnight bag rather than the numerous travel Bibles we have around the house.

“Dad,” I chuckle as I lower the ESV study Bible with its crumbling leather cover into my bag. “This is a heavy-duty Bible conference. I think I’m going to need a heavy-duty Bible.”

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for months, ever since I first learned about the Abiding Women’s Conference being held in Dayton, Virginia. I’ve attended youth conferences, missions conferences, and apologetics conferences, but I can’t ever remember attending a conference focused just on studying the Bible. And the Abiding Conference is for women, taught by women.

On Thursday, I meet some friends from church, and we drive the four hours to Dayton. It’s a beautiful October day, with bright autumn colors everywhere we look.

The conference, which lasts from Thursday to Saturday, is held in a large Mennonite church. I’ve never been in the church before, and it’s a lovely venue for the conference, with a spacious sanctuary framed by tall windows.

The conference’s website promises “A conference for women who want to dig deeper into the Word of God” and the topics for the weekend include “A Case for Studying the Word”, “Understanding the Genres of Scriptures”, and “Understanding the Old Testament”. The speakers’ bios sound equally impressive— they come from many different backgrounds and several have master’s degrees.

It’s a full weekend— there’s two sessions on Thursday afternoon and evening, five on Friday, and two on Saturday before we leave at noon. There’s not even time for question-and-answers at any of the sessions.

I won’t bore my readers with summaries of each topic— I think the full recordings will be available online eventually—but here’s a few main takeaways I liked:

1. Bible study is essential for spiritual growth, for discerning between right and wrong, and for becoming a better servant of Jesus.
2. Randomly flipping through your Bible or just reading your favorite passages isn’t really a good way to grow in understanding the Scripture. (Guilty as charged.)
3. When you read the Bible, make sure you’re realistically carving out the time you need to study a passage well, it’s not an Instagram post.
4. Use the notes in your study Bible, especially when you are studying for Sunday school, there’s no need to re-create the wheel.
5. A little history can help us appreciate the Bible more. For example, just as Moses wrote Genesis while the children of Israel languished in the desert, so the Apostle John wrote the book of John after the fall of Jerusalem to give hope to the banished children of Israel.
6. Much of the Old Testament stories are narrative records of what happened, don’t try to squeeze hidden allegories from the text.
7. Shakespeare invented the knock-knock joke. (Okay, that has nothing to do with the Bible. But one of the speakers mentioned it while trying to make a point, and I think it’s a fun fact!)

And more seriously, probably the most important point of all.

• When you read the Bible, Old or New Testament, look for the overarching story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration through Jesus Christ.

There’s also teaching on comprehension, interpretation, and application of the text. It’s rather like attending a Hermeneutics 101 class.

Some parts, especially the methods of Bible study, aren’t new to me, and that’s okay. I think if you attend a Christian conference and everything you hear is 100% new, either you have been living in a cave, or you’re in the clutches of a cult.

For meals, we gather in the church basement.

Some locals prepare us delicious food, including this charcuterie board. Charcuterie is the latest posh way to serve fruit, meat, and cheese.

We also use the basement for doing a study exercise together, using James 1:2–8.

Connecting with others is one of the best parts of attending conferences. If gaining knowledge were the only point, Youtube or a book would be easier, faster, and cheaper. Even though most of the women at the conference were strangers, I was happy to catch up with my cousin’s wife and a former co-worker.

I met many new people, too. I talked to moms busy with homeschooling, a woman about my age who works in a homeless shelter in Philadelphia, a young girl ready to go to Greece for three months. But my favorite new acquaintance was Alma, a short, 74-year-old Mennonite lady from Virginia. This little white-haired lady sat down across the table from me during our pastry break and told us all about going four-wheeling last summer in Colorado. Alma and her husband were on a trail when a thunderstorm arose, washing out parts of the trail and stranding them. “Eventually, we took the long way out, and got back to our cabin.” Alma told us. “Four-wheeling is easier on you than walking.”

All together, there’s about 140 women at the conference. At noon on Saturday, we’re all given our own copy of the book Women of the Word, which several of the conference speakers borrowed heavily from. I have an audio version of the book, but a paper copy is nice to have.

Soon we were on the road again, anxious to be home. I definitely want to incorporate the new ideas in my daily Bible reading and when I teach Sunday School. If they plan another conference next year, I hope to go again. There’s always new things to learn, and new friends to meet.