How ‘The Bible Recap’ Host Tara-Leigh Cobble Fell in Love with Scripture
By Movieguide® Contributor
After growing up in the church, “The Bible Recap” host Tara-Leigh Cobble knew her version of God, but it wasn’t until she got serious about reading scripture that she learned who God truly was.
“I did grow up in church,” Cobble told Kirk Cameron. “My family was a big church three times a week, private Christian school; my family owned a Christian bookstore. So very early on I was steeped in the word, but spoiler alert, I didn’t value it that much. So that was one of the problems that I think a lot of us who’ve grown up in the church have been challenged by is our lives being saturated in this thing that we go, ‘Okay, I know that’s true, but how does that impact me? Why should I care?’”
Despite her lukewarm faith, Cobble went into full-time ministry after college. As she began spreading the Gospel, she was challenged by a colleague who identified her shallow faith.
“A pastor friend of mine pulled me aside after an event one night and said, ‘Tara, have you read the whole Bible?’ and I said, ‘Sure, I’ve pieced it together over the years, you know, like all the church I just mentioned, selling Christian books, things like that,’” she recalled.
“And he said, ‘I think you should read the whole thing. Not front to back, read it in [the] order that it happened. Read it chronologically so you get the storyline of what’s happening,” she continued.
Reluctantly, Cobble agreed and began to meet with this pastor friend weekly to discuss what she had read during the previous week. After completing the Bible, she came to a startling realization.
“I was reading things I’d never read. Seeing things I’d never seen. Understanding things I’d never understood. And the hard part of the story is I got to the end of it the first time I read through, and I didn’t like God,” she said.
“I didn’t like what I was seeing, and that was heartbreaking,” she continued. “I’m in full ministry; this is all I’ve ever known, and the hardest part was I knew it was all true. I knew it was true. And so now this is who God really is and I don’t like Him. What do I do?”
“So, I’m confessing all this to my pastor friend and he says to me, ‘Okay, I have a new challenge for you. Read it again and this time stop looking for yourself and start looking for God,’” Cobble added.
It didn’t take long for this shift to change everything. Rather than reading the Bible from the lens she had created, Cobble began to see God for who He truly is, and she fell in love.
“It transformed everything, to have this whole new lens to read scripture through,” Cobble said. “I had always been looking for myself in scripture. ‘What are the promises. What are the things I can cling to to back God into a corner. How can I please God. How can I be a good Christian.’ And to read it to understand who He is, that was my aha moment.”
Cobble believes that this was only possible because she read the Bible chronologically. This gave her the context for the events in the story that she had missed before by dropping in halfway through. She believes this context is crucial, and it makes up a core part of her current podcast, “The Bible Recap.”
“The Bible Recap” aims to “equip millions around the world to read, understand, and love the Bible, which helps them encounter God in a way that transforms their entire lives.”
“My big pipe dream was that 300 people would listen,” Cobble said previously. “I woke up that morning to 300 messages from listeners, and so I immediately knew this is a bigger deal.”
The podcast has now garnered over 300 million downloads and topped Apple’s podcast chart for all categories.
“God has blown my little heart wide open with His *exceedingly more*. Almost all of you who will see this post are part of His sweet ‘YES!’ to my tiny prayer,” Cobble posted on Instagram. “So thank you for being here. And thank you to my incredible team. And thanks most of all to God, who keeps drawing people in to read, understand, and love His Word.”
Movieguide® previously reported:
Podcaster and author Tara-Leigh Cobble recently appeared on Kirk Cameron’s TAKEAWAYS to share the best ways to start studying the Bible.
Cobble is the host of the popular THE BIBLE RECAP podcast. While talking to Cameron, she shared some tips about how best to incorporate reading the Bible into everyday life.
Her first tip? Opening the Bible app on her phone first thing in the morning and listening to that day’s reading “before my feet hit the ground.”
When Cameron asked how she deals with missing some days and thinking about just giving up, Cobble shared that there’s “no shame” in finding a routine that works for you, whether that’s listening to it in the car on your morning commute, or at the end of the day.
“There’s no wrong way to consume the word of God,” she stressed.
Cobble also shared tips for “beginners” who are looking to start studying the Bible.
“It’s helpful to start in the New Testament,” she advised, then added that many people are auditory learners, so listening to the Bible read out loud might be more helpful than reading it.
