Members of St Paul’s Church in Oadby recently achieved the ambitious goal of reading the entire Bible aloud in various different languages, bringing people together from the community, across the wider diocese and all over the world.
The Intercultural Worshipping Community made their way through the Old Testament in September last year and resumed their efforts in January this year to complete the New Testament.
Their Bible Reading Marathon was completed over several days as members of the congregation, along with some from other churches in Oadby, took turns to read for one-hour slots, each picking up the baton where the previous person had left off.
They read the Old Testament over four days from 6am to 11pm, and the New Testament over three days from 9am to 8pm.
The event was streamed live each day on St Paul’s YouTube channel and many people joined online while several gathered in person to listen to God’s word being read.
Those who joined to watch the live stream came from many parts of the UK such as Somerset and Manchester and from across the world, including participants from Kuwait, Wales, India, The Netherlands and Greece.
Jan Barlow, Intercultural Pioneer Minister at St Pauls, took the lead in organising the Marathon. She first experienced the impact of corporate scripture reading in her previous role as a tutor and pastoral lead at All Nations Christian College, a mission training college in Hertfordshire.
“Every year the international student body would organise a 24-hour Bible Marathon and it was such a blessing,” she said. “I was a little nervous at first to see what those at St Paul’s would make of the idea, but people were very keen to sign up.
“I was so overwhelmed by the response - people signed up even though they had never done anything like this before and after reading for one hour many people wanted to sign up for another slot right away.”
Corporate scripture reading has proved popular in many contexts, including Leicester’s Church of the Martyrs, who took 70 hours to read through the whole Bible in March 2024.
St Paul’s is an Intercultural Worshipping Community with many cultures and languages represented.
During the Reading Marathon the Bible was read in six different languages – English, Tamil, Welsh, Farsi, Malayalam, and Yoruba.
Jan recalled a special moment, during the reading of the crucifixion from Mark’s Gospel: “The passage was being read in Farsi and being listened to by both Farsi and English speakers; however, the weight of the crucifixion crossed the language difference, and the emotion was felt by all in the room. It was a very special moment,” she said.
“Reading through the entire bible was a profound experience as people found God speaking through familiar – and less familiar - scriptures.
“The words of Revelation 1:3 felt very poignant and meaningful to us; ‘Blessed are those who read the words… and blessed are those who hear it.’”