(Editor's Note: This article was first published in the October 2022 print edition of The Stand HERE.)
In 2020, Tyndale House Publishers approached Dr. Stan May and his wife Iva with this question: “What would you like to have in a study Bible?”
For Iva, the answer was simple and quick: “Everything I wish I could’ve had as a new believer.” She explained a bit, and just like that, a creative new Bible study resource – The One Year Chronological Study Bible – was conceived.
Both Stan and Iva are longtime, highly regarded Bible scholars and teachers. Their ministry journey is varied and full with writing, pastoring, publishing, heading up a nonprofit foundation, speaking, and teaching. Stan now pastors Immanuel Baptist Church in Olive Branch, Mississippi, while Iva pursues her discipleship ministry by writing and teaching.
After serving two pastorates in Arkansas in the early 1980s, the Mays were commissioned by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention to serve in Zimbabwe. In 1995 they returned home for Stan to complete his doctoral work at Mid-America Baptist Seminary. After graduation, he taught at the seminary for 16 years, and Iva developed her leadership ministry by teaching seminary students’ wives.
Building a ministry
During that time, Iva began to perceive a noticeable decline in Bible literacy among women. So she fine-tuned her Bible-based discipleship resource and put it into use immediately with her seminary wives’ groups.
“She created four types of questions to ask,” Stan explained to The Stand. First, detailed discovery questions clarify the story arc of the entire Bible. Then, inferential questions teach theology – what we learn about God, about sin, about grace. Next come connecting questions clarifying how all the pieces fit into the overall arc. Fourth are application questions, e.g.: How do we allow the Bible to transform our lives?
Following her plan, Iva suggested to her ladies’ discipleship groups: “We’ll try it for six weeks, and if you don’t like it, we’ll go back to the old way.”
“At the end of six weeks,” Stan observed, “every group unanimously said, ‘We love this! This is transformative.’”
As she refined her teaching strategies, Iva began compiling the biblical narratives and the questions that she used into a cohesive, big-picture plan. The result is published as W3: Women, the Word, and Worldview, an exciting 52-week discipleship study guide for women – using the Bible, asking the right questions, and supplying complimentary articles and insights.
The W3 distinctive process approaches the Bible in the context of 14 historical eras as a backdrop for a chronological look at the Word’s story arc.
Inspiring more impact
As women’s lives were enriched by Iva’s W3 study, husbands began to get curious about what was available for them. Parents followed suit in search of materials for their children.
Subsequently, W3 provided the model for resources for men and students, both of which reflect the same framework of 14 historical eras that chronicle the story arc of the Bible. The men’s resource is titled M3: Men, Mindset, and Message, and the students’ resource is S3: Story-Shaped Students.
In 2011, Iva’s practical study guides also prompted the Mays to found Chronological Bible Teaching Ministries (CBT) as a nonprofit avenue to provide Bible literacy resources and train people in the Bible’s story.
“From there, Iva dreamed,” Stan said. “We developed a board of people who are like-hearted, and we began to dream, ‘What if we could have “our own” Bible?’ Originally, we talked to one major publisher, and it fell through.”
As the Mays and the CBT board continued to pray and dream, the year 2020 brought with it some all-too-familiar curveballs. But worldwide pandemic or not, the Lord showed once again that His perfect plan in His perfect timing cannot be thwarted.
“When COVID hit,” Stan recalled, “we began to pray very seriously about what ways we could continue to facilitate discipleship in an environment that had changed so dramatically.”
Reaching still farther
And that’s when the Tyndale House question came to the forefront: “What would you like in a study Bible?”
Iva answered. And, to make a long conversation short …
Tyndale said, “Hey! We like your idea.”
“So Tyndale provided the New Living Translation (NLT),” Stan said, “and allowed us to write a user guide.”
“We tried to develop in the user guide everything a person would need to know to really embrace the way we teach the Bible,” Iva added. The Mays simply took the NLT One Year Chronological Bible that Tyndale already owns and complimented it with the unique study elements and special features of CBT.
“This isn’t what’s already been done,” Iva said. “This isn’t what is out there. This is all the notes and all of the commentary that has to be fulfilled in the story arc of the Bible.”
“In essence, it’s a CBT Bible,” Stan added.
Right before their eyes, the Mays’ dreams were becoming reality as they watched fervent prayers come to fruition. They were creating a study Bible that allows Scripture to interpret Scripture.
As Stan put it, “You can’t understand Jesus apart from the revelation that preceded Him. … The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”
“People have a lot of pieces of the Bible that they love,” Iva said. And this new study Bible will help believers grow as they learn how to put all those pieces together.
