NIV, Recovery Devotional Bible

By Zondervan

Day-by-day encouragement for anyone in a Twelve-Step recovery program

The NIV Recovery Devotional Bible strengthens, assists, and encourages you with fresh perspectives on the link between faith and recovery, by offering day-by-day encouragement for anyone in a Twelve-Step recovery program. It stands alongside these twelve steps as a unique tool for those in recovery from addictive, compulsive, or codependent behavior patterns.

Features:

• Complete text of the accurate, readable, and clear New International Version (NIV)
• 312 Daily Meditations help readers apply biblical principles to the recovery process
• 2,000 Step Markers indicate passages that relate to particular steps of the Twelve Step Plan
• Articles explain how to use the Bible and help readers connect Scripture and the Twelve Steps
• Recovery Resource section offers help for the hurting
• Subject index for locating topics easily
• Double-column format

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Dec 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9780310440994

Book preview

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION

NIV Recovery Devotional Bible

NIV Recovery Devotional Bible

Copyright © 2015 by Zondervan

All rights reserved

The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™

Used by Permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Published by Zondervan

3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546, USA

www.zondervan.com

New International Version and NIV are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc.™

Used by permission.

ePub Edition November 2015: 978-0-310-44099-4

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2015946823

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Notice of copyright must appear on the title or copyright page as follows:

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™

Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Edited by: Verne Becker, Paul Woods

All rights reserved.

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A portion of the purchase price of your NIV® Bible is provided to Biblica so together we support the mission of Transforming lives through God’s Word.

Table of Contents

How to Use This eBible

Alphabetical Order of the Books of the Bible

Acknowledgments

Introduction to the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

The Bible—Step by Step

The Spiritual Roots of the Twelve Steps

Working Together: The Bible and the Twelve Steps

The Recovery Family

Preface to the New International Version

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Old Testament Table of Contents

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New Testament Table of Contents

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Table of Weights and Measures

Contributors

Prayers and Readings

Reading Plans

An Overview of the Bible in Six Months

Through the Bible in a Year

Recovery Resource Organizations

Where to Turn for Help in the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible

Meditations Index

Life Connections Index

Subject Index

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OLD TESTAMENT

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Genesis

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50

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Exodus

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40

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Leviticus

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

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Numbers

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36

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Deuteronomy

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34

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Joshua

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

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Judges

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

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Ruth

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

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1 Samuel

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31

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2 Samuel

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

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1 Kings

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

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2 Kings

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

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1 Chronicles

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29

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2 Chronicles

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36

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Ezra

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

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Nehemiah

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

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Esther

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

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Job

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42

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Psalms

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 100 | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104 | 105 | 106 | 107 | 108 | 109 | 110 | 111 | 112 | 113 | 114 | 115 | 116 | 117 | 118 | 119 | 120 | 121 | 122 | 123 | 124 | 125 | 126 | 127 | 128 | 129 | 130 | 131 | 132 | 133 | 134 | 135 | 136 | 137 | 138 | 139 | 140 | 141 | 142 | 143 | 144 | 145 | 146 | 147 | 148 | 149 | 150

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Proverbs

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31

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Ecclesiastes

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

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Song of Songs

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

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Isaiah

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66

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Jeremiah

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52

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Lamentations

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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Ezekiel

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48

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Daniel

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

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Hosea

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

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Joel

1 | 2 | 3

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Amos

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

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Obadiah

1

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Jonah

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

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Micah

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

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Nahum

1 | 2 | 3

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Habakkuk

1 | 2 | 3

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Zephaniah

1 | 2 | 3

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Haggai

1 | 2

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Zechariah

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

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Malachi

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

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NEW TESTAMENT

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Matthew

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

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Mark

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

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Luke

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

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John

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

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Acts

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

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Romans

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

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1 Corinthians

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

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2 Corinthians

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

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Galatians

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

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Ephesians

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

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Philippians

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

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Colossians

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

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1 Thessalonians

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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2 Thessalonians

1 | 2 | 3

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1 Timothy

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

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2 Timothy

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

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Titus

1 | 2 | 3

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Philemon

1

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Hebrews

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

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James

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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1 Peter

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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2 Peter

1 | 2 | 3

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1 John

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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2 John

1

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3 John

1

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Jude

1

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Revelation

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

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How to Use This eBible

What is the difference between an eBook and a print book?

eBook versions of Bibles contain all the content and supplementary materials found in the original print versions and are optimized for navigation in the various apps and devices used for display. eReaders recognize text as one fluid string and are formatted in a single column, which differs from the multi-column layout seen in many print version Bibles. Therefore, some content may not match the exact appearance of the original print version, but instead uses hyperlinks to navigate between related content.

How do I use the eBook Table of Contents?

*Important Note: Be sure to consult your device manufacturer’s User’s Guide for device-specific navigation instructions.*

The Table of Contents is generally formatted in the same order as the original print version and hyperlinked as follows:

• Front matter—Introductory articles

• Bible books and chapters

• Back matter—Supplementary materials

To navigate to specific Bible books, chapters, or verses, please note the following:

• Book links (Ex. Genesis) go directly to the Introduction of each book, or the beginning of that Bible book if there is no introductory text.

• Chapter links go directly to the beginning of the chapter associated with a book.

• Use the device’s Next Page/Previous Page buttons or functions to scroll through the verses in each chapter.

• Every Bible book and chapter hyperlink in the Bible text returns or goes back to the Table of Contents. Or, use the device’s back button or function to go back to the last selection.

How do I navigate supplementary materials?

Within articles and supplementary materials, every Scripture reference or article title is hyperlinked directly to the location of that content. Use the device’s back button or function to go back to the last selection. The following provides more specific instructions for specific types of content found in this ebook.

Footnotes (Translators’ Notes) are marked with small, hyperlinked superscript letters a.

• Select the hyperlinked superscript letter in the main Bible text to go to the corresponding footnote.

• Select the hyperlinked letter to the left of the footnote(s) and you are returned to the main Bible text, or use the device’s back button or function to go back to the last selection.

Articles and features related to Bible content are accessible through the pointer links that are interspersed throughout the Bible text. Types of features include Meditations and Life Connections.

• Select the hyperlinked article title phrase (Ex. Life Connections) at the end of a paragraph where referenced Bible verse(s) appear to go to its location in the Annotations section at the end of each Bible book.

• Select the hyperlinked title entry to go back to the Bible verse location, or use the device’s back button or function to go back to the last selection.

Step Markers help you locate passages that pertain to the Twelve Steps.

• Step Marker verses are indicated by curly braces around the verse number. Example: {7}.

• Hyperlinked Step Numbers appear at the end of each paragraph where these Step Marker verses appear, and indicate which Step groupings are associated with these verses. These links navigate to the discussion of those Steps in the introductory article "The Bible—Step by Step".

• Use the device’s back button or function to go back to the Bible verse location.

The Subject Index allows you to explore various topics discussed in Meditations articles.

• Select the hyperlinked letter of the alphabet to navigate to the corresponding list of entries.

• Selecting the letter heading from within the list of entries will return to the beginning of the Index.

• Use the device’s Next Page/Previous Page buttons or functions to scroll through the entries.

• Use the device’s back button or function to go back to the last selection.

Alphabetical Order of the Books of the Bible

The books of the New Testament are indicated by italics.

Acts

Amos

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

Colossians

1 Corinthians

2 Corinthians

Daniel

Deuteronomy

Ecclesiastes

Ephesians

Esther

Exodus

Ezekiel

Ezra

Galatians

Genesis

Habakkuk

Haggai

Hebrews

Hosea

Isaiah

James

Jeremiah

Job

Joel

John

1 John

2 John

3 John

Jonah

Joshua

Jude

Judges

1 Kings

2 Kings

Lamentations

Leviticus

Luke

Malachi

Mark

Matthew

Micah

Nahum

Nehemiah

Numbers

Obadiah

1 Peter

2 Peter

Philemon

Philippians

Proverbs

Psalms

Revelation

Romans

Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

Song of Songs

1 Thessalonians

2 Thessalonians

1 Timothy

2 Timothy

Titus

Zechariah

Zephaniah

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to all who supported, encouraged, championed, evaluated, advised, contributed to and edited material for the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible:

All the gifted writers and partners in recovery whose meditations and writings appear in this Bible. Their names, books and publishers are indexed in the back of this Bible.

Bill Chickering, for character profile contributions, general advice and useful resources.

Melinda Fish, for character profile contributions and the New Testament Step Markers.

Barbara Stephens, for character profile contributions, Old Testament Step Markers, and original meditations.

Paul Woods and Doris Rikkers at Zondervan, for their Bible publishing expertise and consistent support of the project (first edition), and Mike Vander Klipp for the second edition. Shari Vanden Berg at Zondervan Publishing House, for her editorial skill on this edition. Mark Rice at Zondervan, for the use of Zondervan’s BibleSource software (first edition).

Tom Grady and his staff at HarperSanFrancisco, for valuable support, input and resource materials.

Dale Pritchett and Logos Research Systems, for the use of their Logos Bible Study software.

The men of the Monday Night Men’s Support Group in Glen Rock, New Jersey, for their encouragement and emotional support.

Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, for permission to use brief quotes from Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book) and from Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers.

Dick B. and Ken B. of Paradise Research Publications, for insights from two of Dick’s books: The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A.’s Roots in the Bible, and Turning Point: A History of Early A.A.’s Spiritual Roots and Successes. More info at dickb.com.

And finally, thanks to my wife and recovery partner, Nancy, for her patience during all the evenings I had to spend alone completing this project.

—Verne Becker

Introduction to the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible

Welcome to the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible, a unique tool for those of us who are recovering from addictive, compulsive or codependent behavior patterns. It is designed to enhance our recovery work by integrating the text of the Bible with the Twelve Steps, the set of principles used by programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Adult Children of Alcoholics, and Codependents Anonymous. The features inserted in this Bible—Meditations and Step Markers—highlight the spiritual parallels between the Twelve Steps and the Bible.

The Twelve Steps and the Bible—Together?

Bringing the Steps and the Scriptures together makes sense for several reasons. First, the Twelve Steps are based on Biblical principles and were written at a time when AA’s primary spiritual source materials were the Bible and the teachings of a Christian organization known as the Oxford Group. Second, just as the Twelve Steps are a spiritual rather than a religious program, the Bible is a spiritual rather than religious book. It is clearly Judeo-Christian, but it does not tell us what church to join or what brand of theology to subscribe to. It provides spiritual truth that we must apply to our own lives and recovery.

How Will The Recovery Devotional Bible Help Me?

The Recovery Devotional Bible can support and strengthen your recovery in many ways. It can:

• Illuminate spiritual truths behind the Twelve Steps

• Expand your understanding of God and how to relate to him

• Correct distorted views of God you may have learned in your dysfunctional family system

• Provide spiritually rich source material for your own prayer and meditation

• Lead you toward the will of God for your life

• Show you how to carry on healthy, functional relationships

• Point you to Biblical characters who demonstrate healthy and unhealthy ways of dealing with dysfunction

• Provide a fresh perspective on the connection between your faith and your recovery

• Help you see the Bible and personal faith in a whole new way

• Serve as a valuable resource in Twelve-Step meetings, church support groups and your personal spiritual growth.

Although the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible refers to Christians who are in recovery, you do not have to be a Christian to benefit from it. If you consider yourself a Christian, the benefit to you will increase, as you will likely discover a whole new dimension to your faith—the healing dimension.

What Is in This Bible?

The NIV Bible Text

The NIV Recovery Devotional Bible features the complete text of the Holy Bible, New International Version. This version’s readability and accuracy make it the most popular modern English translation available today. It allows us to experience the stories, the people and the truth of the Bible in a fresh way.

Introductory Articles

Immediately following this introduction you’ll find essays from various authors that provide helpful background on the relationship between the Twelve Steps and the Bible. Together they present a historical and experiential context in which you can read and understand the Recovery Devotional Bible.

Meditations

In keeping with Step Eleven, which names prayer and meditation as the means for improving our conscious contact with God, the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible provides a full year of 365 Meditations, addressing topics in the Bible text. Each Meditation highlights some aspect of Twelve-Step recovery as it is reflected in a specially chosen passage of Scripture. A short prayer accompanies each one, and the steps to which each Meditation applies are also listed.

All of these Meditations are written by men and women with firsthand knowledge of recovery. You’ll recognize many of them as experts in the recovery field. They know what they’re talking about, and they all share the conviction that the Twelve Steps are at their core a spiritual program.

The Bible is packed not only with principles that apply to our recovery, but also with people from whom we can learn. Many Biblical characters grew up in what we would now call dysfunctional homes. Some made tragic choices; others wisely chose the path of facing their own weaknesses and surrendering their lives to God; still others made mistakes, but owned up to them and later became greatly used by God. Some of the Meditations in the NIV Recovery Devotional Bible are profiles of these Biblical characters. The person’s name just above the title of a Meditation tells you it is a character study.

Step Markers

To help you find a host of other passages that relate to the Twelve Steps, use the Step Markers. These small brackets and step symbols placed in the margin of the Bible text call attention to many passages that pertain to the Steps. For simplicity, the Steps have been combined into four groupings. Some recovery writers have called Steps One, Two and Three the give up Steps; Steps Four, Five, Six and Seven the clean up Steps; Steps Eight and Nine the make up Steps; and Steps Ten, Eleven and Twelve the keep up Steps. The Step Markers are only suggestions; you may see a stronger connection between the verse and a completely different Step. That’s fine. Neither are the markers intended to be comprehensive; there are far too many passages with Twelve-Step parallels to cover them all.

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The Twelve Steps are reprinted and adapted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Permission to reprint and adapt the Twelve Steps does not mean that AA has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, nor that AA agrees with the views expressed herein. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism—use of the Twelve Steps in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after AA, but which address other problems, does not imply otherwise.

The Bible—Step by Step

The spiritual concepts behind the Twelve Steps appear throughout the Bible. Here is a small sampling of passages that support each Step. As you read through them, think of them less as proof texts and more as connecting links between the Steps and the Scriptures, between recovery and faith.

STEP ONE

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Psalms 6:6–10; 34:17–18; 38:8; 42:7

Proverbs 28:26

Isaiah 38:12–13

Matthew 9:36

Romans 7:15–20

1 Corinthians 8:2

2 Corinthians 12:9–10

STEP TWO

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Deuteronomy 33:27

Job 6:8

Psalms 63:1; 91:1

Isaiah 41:10; 61:10

Jeremiah 30:17

Ezekiel 18:31

Mark 5:15; 9:23–24; 10:51–52

Luke 5:31; 15:17

John 3:16

Romans 8:38–39

2 Corinthians 1:9; 3:5

Philippians 2:13; 4:19

Hebrews 11:6

1 Peter 5:7

STEP THREE

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Deuteronomy 30:19–20

Psalms 40:1–2; 78:38–39; 118:8–9

Proverbs 3:5–6; 16:3; 18:10

Isaiah 40:31; 55:1

Jeremiah 17:14

Lamentations 3:26

Matthew 4:18–22; 7:7; 11:28–30

Mark 12:30

Galatians 2:20

Philippians 2:12–13

STEP FOUR

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Psalm 4:4

Proverbs 27:1

Jeremiah 17:9–10

Lamentations 3:40

Joel 2:13

Micah 6:8

Matthew 26:41

John 14:1

2 Corinthians 13:5–6

Ephesians 4:31

Colossians 3:5–8

James 1:19–21; 3:14–16

2 Peter 1:5–7

1 John 1:8–9

STEP FIVE

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Psalms 32:3–5; 51:17; 55:22

Proverbs 18:24; 27:17; 28:13

Isaiah 44:22

Jeremiah 14:20

Daniel 9:4

Luke 15:18–19

Romans 3:23; 14:12

Ephesians 1:7–8

James 4:7–8; 5:16

1 John 1:8–9; 2:1–2

STEP SIX

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Psalm 119:10–12; 139:23–24

Proverbs 3:24

Lamentations 3:19–22

Ezekiel 36:25

John 15:7

Romans 6:11–12

Philippians 3:12–14

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Hebrews 9:14

James 4:10

1 Peter 1:13–14

1 John 5:14

STEP SEVEN

Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.

Psalm 25:8–11; 34:7; 51:1–2, 10–12

Isaiah 41:13

Ezekiel 36:25–26

Matthew 21:22; 23:12

Mark 11:24

Acts 3:19

Romans 4:20–21; 8:1–2, 31–32

James 4:6–8

1 John 1:9; 5:15

STEP EIGHT

Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Deuteronomy 31:6

Proverbs 25:9–10

Jeremiah 35:15

Matthew 6:14–15; 7:3–5

Mark 11:25

Luke 6:27–31, 37–38; 19:8

Romans 2:1; 15:1–3

Ephesians 4:32

1 John 4:11–12

STEP NINE

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Leviticus 19:17–18

Proverbs 13:20; 18:24

Ezekiel 33:15–16

Matthew 5:23–26, 43–45

Luke 6:35–36

Romans 12:14–21; 13:8; 14:13

Ephesians 4:25–28

Philippians 2:3–4, 14–15

Colossians 3:12–13

1 John 2:9–10; 4:19–21

STEP TEN

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Psalms 19:12; 34:12; 139:23–24

Proverbs 14:29–30; 21:2

Ezekiel 33:14–16

Mark 14:38

Luke 6:27–31; 6:41–42

Romans 12:3

1 Corinthians 10:12

2 Corinthians 3:5

Ephesians 4:22–24; 5:15–16

James 1:23–25

1 John 1:7

Jude 24–25

STEP ELEVEN

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

Psalm 1:1–3; 16:7–8; 25:4–5; 37:7, 9; 88:9; 119:105–106

Proverbs 3:5–6; 16:20

Isaiah 26:3–4; 30:21

Lamentations 3:25–26

Hosea 6:3

Matthew 6:6, 9–13; 7:7; 21:22; 26:39

Mark 11:24

Luke 11:9–10

Romans 8:26

Philippians 4:6

Colossians 1:10; 3:16

STEP TWELVE

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Psalm 71:15–18; 78:1–8; 96

Ecclesiastes 4:5–11

Isaiah 38:10–20

Matthew 25:40; 28:19–20

Mark 5:19

Luke 8:16–18; 14:12–14

Romans 8:1–2; 12:1–2

2 Corinthians 5:17–20

Galatians 6:1

Ephesians 5:1–2

Philippians 4:8–9

Colossians 4:5–6

2 Timothy 4:2

Hebrews 13:15–16

1 Peter 4:8–11

The Spiritual Roots of the Twelve Steps

—by Tim Stafford

Author M. Scott Peck calls it the greatest event of the twentieth century: The founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio, on June 10, 1935. Two apparently hopeless alcoholics, one jobless for years, the other a surgeon who had needed a drink that day to steady his scalpel, had found each other.

In the years since, AA membership has grown from two to nearly two million. AA’s Twelve Steps, which owe virtually nothing to modern psychology or medicine, are unreservedly embraced by courts, hospitals, and a large number of counselors and psychologists. Beyond AA, the Twelve Steps have become the treatment of choice for a large catalogue of disorders, from sexual addiction to overeating. Many are not aware of the spiritual roots of the Twelve Steps, so we are presenting an overview here.

Bill W.

Bill Wilson (Bill W. in AA lore, because of AA’s principle of anonymity) was unquestionably the most influential person in the development of Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1934 he was a grandiose, loud-talking New York City alcoholic. Nearly 40, he was feeding his habit by stealing grocery money from his wife’s purse and sometimes by panhandling. Several times he had been hospitalized, but he always started drinking again, no matter what resolutions he made.

One November day an old alcoholic friend, Ebby Thatcher, paid him a visit. Thatcher was sober and had come to tell Wilson why. He had had a religious experience. Members of an organization called the Oxford Group had visited him in jail, where he had been incarcerated for drunkenness, and he had yielded his life to God. The desire to drink was gone, he said. His life was changed.

After several visits, Thatcher convinced Wilson—who was quite averse to religion—to attend a meeting at a Manhattan rescue mission sponsored by Calvary Episcopal Church, local headquarters of the Oxford Group. Wilson, though quite drunk, was moved by the testimonies and went forward to testify to his own changed heart. This change lasted less than a day: Wilson went on a three-day binge and was hospitalized again.

Thatcher visited the hospital, and at Wilson’s request repeated his formula for conversion: Realize you are licked, admit it, and get willing to turn your life over to the care of God. After Thatcher left, Wilson fell into a deep depression. But finally, while still in the hospital, he found himself crying out, If there is a God, let him show himself! I am ready to do anything!

What followed was a powerful spiritual experience in which Wilson felt overwhelmed by a sense of freedom, peace and the presence of God.

He never took another drink.

Naturally, the new convert joined the Oxford Group, attending Sunday-night meetings at Calvary Church, pastored by the Episcopalian Sam Shoemaker. Shoemaker was the best-known Oxford Group leader in America, but he may have made his greatest contribution through Wilson.

Wilson would write, The early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgment of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Groups and directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and from nowhere else.

That spring, Wilson went to Akron, Ohio, on a would-be business deal. The deal fell flat. Broke and lonely, Wilson felt sorely tempted to drink. Desperately, he looked in his hotel’s directory and called a clergyman, asking for contact with the Oxford Group. After a long series of unproductive calls he reached Henrietta Seiberling, a local Oxford Group leader. Wilson’s first words to her were, I’m from the Oxford Group, and I’m a rum hound from New York. He poured out his fear of falling, and she invited him over immediately.

She had a project in mind. For two years she had been working on a surgeon, Bob Smith, through the Oxford Group. Smith was Wilson’s opposite in personality; a silent drinker, stern and distant. The group had confessed with him and prayed with him, but his drinking had remained as uncontrollable as ever. The next day the two men met, and they hit it off remarkably. Within a month Smith took his last drink and AA was founded. Soon the two men had convinced other alcoholics in Akron to join the Oxford Group meetings, just as Wilson had previously done in New York.

Evangelical Roots

While the Oxford Group (later renamed Moral Rearmament) would ultimately drift away from a solidly grounded faith, they began with a strong evangelical identity. They tried particularly to reach up-and-outers by avoiding church buildings and traditional Christian language.

Oxford Group meetings were small and informal, emphasizing prayer, mutual confession, the importance of making restitution where you have wronged someone, and guidance—a Quakerish process where members sat quietly and expressed what they believed God might be saying to them. Guidance was always checked with other members. The group emphasized the importance of personal witness.

Most of these emphases and practices found their way into AA. Yet within five years, both the New York and the Akron alcoholics split from the Oxford Group. For the alcoholics, the Oxford Group was too religious, too sure that they knew what alcoholics needed, and most unwilling to let alcoholism be their main subject. They wanted alcoholics to listen, not just talk, and to focus on Christ.

Bill Wilson was developing a very different vision: a fellowship of alcoholics dedicated to helping one another stay sober through a spiritual program—a program that recognized no dogma, no absolutes, and was open to all religious persuasions, including atheism. For the Oxford Group, the goal was Jesus Christ. For Bill Wilson, the goal was simply sobriety.

The Twelve Steps

In the early years of AA, converts were few, backslidings many. But the recovering alcoholics, and Bill Wilson in particular, were dogged in their efforts. Gradually they gained insight into what worked and what didn’t.

None of the alcoholics knew much about publishing, but they thought a book would be a good way of raising money and publicizing their ideas. Wilson began to write in 1938. His drafts were read and argued over by the alcoholics. So was the title: Alcoholics Anonymous. Published in 1939, it soon became known as the Big Book because the first edition was printed on such thick paper. The book has paid AA’s bills up to the present. It has sold over ten million copies and currently sells over one million each year.

The Big Book reads like an advice column from an ancient Field and Stream. At its core are the Twelve Steps, which are usually displayed prominently at AA meetings. The Twelve Steps draw so broadly from Christian traditions that one could find parallels sprinkled throughout Christian history. The steps came directly, however, through the evangelical practice of the Oxford Group. For simplicity, I have paired some of the steps together.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Alcoholics have a hundred excuses why they drink, and a thousand resolutions to quit. Their first step toward recovery is realizing that their schemes for reform are hopeless, that they cannot just make up their minds to do better. They are caught in something more powerful than themselves.

This is what AA has usually meant by the disease concept of alcohol—it is more a metaphor than a physiological explanation. To some, the metaphor suggests a claim that alcoholics are victims of circumstance and not responsible for their behavior. That apprehension is misplaced, at least as far as the AA founders were concerned. They were saying, in fact, something very close to what theologians express in the language of sin.

A person who sins does so because they are caught in a web of sin. How they got there they may not know, but they cannot escape on their own power, and their attempts to do so only catches them deeper in the web. So the conviction of sin—not sins, but Sin, the underlying, inescapable power that leads to sins—is necessary for anyone who would accept the grace of God.

Similarly, an alcoholic cannot escape their addiction. Until they recognize their helplessness, they will be unwilling or unable to turn outside themselves for the help they need. They may never know why they are an alcoholic, but they remain responsible—responsible to recognize their helplessness. This is a recognizably Christian idea.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

The spiritual roots of the Second and Third Steps are simply conversion. Sinners who have recognized their own hopelessness come to believe that God can rescue them and so turn their lives over to this God. The prayer of surrender—on your knees, inevitably—was heavily stressed in the Oxford Group and in the earliest AA meetings.

The root is twisted a bit, however, with the introduction of God as we understand him. This language came from the Oxford Group. Shoemaker used it to indicate an openness to people in process. He encouraged honest seekers to surrender as much of ourselves as we can to as much of Christ as we understand.

For AA, however, the term became more accurately a statement of religious pluralism. As historian Ernest Kurtz writes, The briefest statement of the fundamental, primitive Christian messages runs: ‘Jesus saves.’ The fundamental first message of Alcoholics Anonymous … ran: ‘Something saves.’  The Higher Power is often, for the irreligious, simply the AA group.

God as we understand him allows room for seekers—but it also leaves room for those who prefer to define God, rather than to allow him to define them. It is a profoundly ambivalent expression.

According to Bill Wilson, alcoholics came from so many religious persuasions and were so cantankerous, they simply would not assent to any statement of orthodoxy. If you wanted to help them, you simply had to leave room for their independence. However, there is ample reason to think that Bill Wilson himself was the leading independent and cantankerous alcoholic. Though he was close to Christians for the rest of his life, he never could reconcile himself to any orthodox expression of faith.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

For the Fourth Step, the Big Book suggests a detailed and probing process of written self-evaluation. It includes listing all people, institutions and principles that are the object of anger or resentment, and writing down one’s own contribution to all broken relationships.

The Fifth Step, according to Wilson, is the most difficult of all, because it requires humiliation. In AA one may confess to a sponsor, another alcoholic chosen as a guide because of their greater experience and personal affinity. Or one may confess to a pastor or some respected person.

Self-evaluation and particularly confession were significant parts of the Oxford Group’s first-century Christianity. The Oxford Group cultivated an atmosphere where people could spontaneously say what they were thinking and feeling—an atmosphere much like that of an AA meeting.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.

Steps Six and Seven carry on the surrender to God begun in Step Three, applying it to specific flaws discovered in the course of taking personal inventory. Wilson stressed that it was not enough to know oneself, even to confess one’s shortcomings. One must humbly ask God for help.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Steps Eight and Nine carry on with the list made in Step Four, but now call for outward confession and restitution toward those who have been harmed. This was standard Oxford Group practice. Shoemaker taught that concrete acts of restitution should follow immediately after conversion. That is why on the founding day of AA, Bob Smith disappeared for several hours, to the alarm of his new friend Bill Wilson. As the Oxford Group had taught him, Smith had gone to make the rounds of people he had harmed, to ask their forgiveness and make amends whenever possible.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Practically speaking, AA members never graduate. Rather, they consider themselves alcoholic for life, even if they have not taken a drink in 30 years. In this sense, AA is like a church. It cannot, by definition, be outgrown. It is a lifelong process.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying for knowledge of his will or us and the power to carry that out.

The Christian roots of the Twelve Steps are perhaps the clearest in Step Eleven. The focus is on relationship with God himself, not simply on sobriety. While Wilson often stressed the practical benefits of prayer, the Eleventh Step urges alcoholics to go beyond their own problems and develop a life of conscious contact with God. Wilson suggested that alcoholics begin and end every day with personal prayer and recommended that AA members use the resources of their own church, if they had one.

Wilson suggested the prayer of Saint Francis. In times of stress, he recommended praying repeatedly, Thy will, not mine, be done. More common in AA, though, is the Serenity Prayer, adapted from Reinhold Niebuhr and often used to close meetings: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. AA made it famous.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In AA parlance, twelfth-stepping is witnessing, almost always by giving a personal testimony. In the early days, AA members paid calls on the alcoholic wards of local hospitals, looking for the worst drunks they could find. They would tell their stories, and if interest was aroused, go on to explain the Twelve Steps. Today, witnessing is generally less aggressive. Nevertheless, AA maintains Wilson’s belief that sharing the AA message is a means of maintaining sobriety. Wilson observed, Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail.

This emphasis on carrying the message came directly from the Oxford Group, which reflected historic evangelical belief that individual witness is an essential part of Christian living. By witness Oxford Group members meant primarily sharing their own stories of conversion. Shoemaker spoke of such witness as one of the experiences that keeps our own conversion living and burning.

How Christian Are the Twelve Steps?

Clearly, the Twelve Steps originated in Christian traditions, transmitted directly through an evangelical movement. Conviction of sin, conversion, yielding to God, self-assessment, confession, restitution, prayer, witness; these are all classic elements of Christian piety.

The Twelve Steps are Christian, but AA is not. Under Sam Shoemaker’s leadership, these Twelve Steps would have created a Christian group; under Bill Wilson’s they make a group that has a wider appeal, for it takes on the pluralistic religious coloration of our culture.

AA may be unprecedented in this: it converted a Christian program of discipleship. Wilson detached the discipleship process from its Christian vision and applied it to a more immediate goal: sobriety.

A number of Christians have attempted to re-Christianize the Twelve Steps by rewriting them, by using them in a Christian context, and by making clear that the Higher Power is Jesus Christ. There can be no objection to doing this. The Twelve Steps are a package of essentially Christian practices, and nothing is compromised in using them.

In many parts of the U.S. the majority of people in Twelve Step groups recognize Jesus as the Higher Power. Even where this is not so, one can easily find an AA group more to one’s liking. And most groups are genuinely tolerant. People can express their convictions without any sense of intimidation.

The Twelve Steps penetrate every level of American society, including some where Christian practices are unheard of. At least one church cultivates an image in Twelve Step circles as a place where you can go to learn more about the Higher Power.

The problem comes when recovery from addictions becomes salvation in some final sense, and the therapy group becomes a church substitute. A commission of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, making a positive assessment of AA, wrote that the ‘spiritual awakening’ to which frequent reference is made in AA literature does not refer to ‘conversion’ but to a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism, however that change may take place.

But that is not always the view of people in Twelve Step groups. A life-changing experience with a Higher Power may lead them to believe they have found God, and God’s people, and can center their salvation in the Twelve Step group. The problem with that belief is that salvation is more than sobriety. We should be careful not to be content when troubled people are helped through Twelve Step programs. They may be awakening spiritually, and certainly they are being powerfully helped, but they cannot experience the full awakening proclaimed by the Twelfth Step until they call the Higher Power by his true name announced in the Bible.

For those who have already received salvation but still struggle with addiction, the Twelve Steps provide a recovery program that is consistent with their faith. As a result, Christians can experience their salvation in a deeper, real-life situation as they allow Christ to free them from their addictions.

From an official AA standpoint, the way people choose to distinguish between recovery and salvation is completely up to them. The unswerving focus of AA is to help addicts achieve and maintain sobriety, regardless of their religious faith or lack thereof. Yet because the Twelve Steps are a profound body of spiritual, even Biblical principles, they can serve as a bridge to a true Christian faith.

Working Together: The Bible and the Twelve Steps

—by J. Keith Miller

The Twelve Steps have been used to deal with addictions to alcohol, food, recreational and prescription drugs, sex, gambling, and spending, and addictions to different kinds of unhealthy relationships that people form to try to alleviate or erase their pain. Separate movements have been established to deal with each of these addictions. The simple yet profoundly powerful spiritual model that is hidden within the Twelve Steps has caused these groups collectively to become perhaps the fastest-growing spiritual movement in America today.

I believe this growth is occurring because the Twelve Steps bring Biblical principles of faith to bear on the pain of contemporary people in a way that leads sufferers into a close living relationship with God and frees them to live a meaningful life seeking God’s will.

My experience in Twelve Step groups has convinced me that God has provided a way of spiritual healing and growth that may well be the most important spiritual model of any age for contemporary Christians. I have found more self-worth in God, more serenity than I have ever known, and a way to deal specifically with the personal problems that have kept me anxious and afraid all my life. I sense that there are many other Christians who know their lives and relationships are in trouble but don’t know how to change.

Ordinary People

The people whom God uses to teach a new spiritual way often are not recognized religious leaders but those who appear to be ordinary men and women, carpenters like Jesus, tent-makers like Paul, or teachers of rhetoric like Augustine. Their methods have the smell of earth and the sights and sounds of real life about them.

The founders of Alcoholics Anonymous who developed the Twelve Steps of AA were such a group. They were experiencing the pain of an apparently incurable spiritual and emotional illness—alcohol addiction—that was destroying their minds, their bodies and their ability to make a contribution to society. Their disease had driven God out of their lives; they and their compulsions had replaced him as the center of their motivations and relationships. Medical science and even the Church had virtually given up trying to treat these lost people.

The Hunger for Healing

Then, in the experience of their own powerlessness, admitting the bankruptcy of their self-centeredness and the insanity of their self-destructive addictive behavior, these spiritually crippled men and women turned to God and each other as their only hope. As they turned their lives and their wills over to God, they rediscovered some amazing secrets that many parts of the Church had lost along the way. They developed a hunger for healing and a hunger for God. They discovered a more simple way to live, trying to find and do God’s will amid the noise and shattering vibrations of contemporary life. Many of these men and women have found healing in their primary relationships, the peace of surrender, the humility and self-acceptance that follow confession and making amends, and the joy and sense of purpose in doing God’s will and sharing the hope and healing they are finding.

God As We Understand Him

The freedom to choose one’s view of God is sometimes frightening to institution-oriented Christians, but it is only a raw expression of the freedom all Christian denominations faced at their inception. The striking thing about the Twelve Step pilgrim’s movement through the program is that after a few months or years the personality of God that comes into focus is so often that revealed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. My own faith is unashamedly Christian, but this program is also for those who start with no faith, only pain and frustration.

There is no question that what you believe about God is very important over the long haul. In Christianity the tests of belief are mostly written and cognitive (Credo, faith statements, and the Bible). In the Twelve Steps one finds out what God is like by entering a community of people who have made a radical commitment of their lives to God. As newcomers see God working in the lives of people in that community, they learn about his nature and how he operates. As they work the Steps and put their own lives in the hands of this God (whatever they call God at first), they discover firsthand the loving, redeeming, supporting, moral and confronting nature of God. Later many of them see that this is in fact the same God that Christians believe in, and numbers of them join the Church.

There they discover what has been written in the Bible about this God they have come to love and depend on. They may be thrilled to find out about eternal life, which seems like a bonus to them because they came to believe and committed their lives to God on the basis of what God does in the here-and-now world of sin and addiction. It is interesting to note that this getting to know the living God through the community of believers instead of through an acceptance of the authoritative New Testament was the experience of the early church for over 300 years because the New Testament wasn’t completely put together and accepted by the Church until AD. 393.

Jesus and the Higher Power

The experience of the Twelve Steps, like that of the Christian church, is based on the assumption that God is in fact real, alive and capable of revealing himself as he truly is through a personal relationship with people in a community of faith. As a Christian, I am very grateful that I have both the Christian church with its Bible and liturgy and the Twelve Steps as aids to authentic spiritual growth.

For me, having studied the Bible for years, there is no question that the Higher Power of the Twelve Steps is the same God revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I invite any hurting person to taste the healing, growing experience that is this way of surrendering ourselves to a Higher Power—to us Christians, the God of Jesus Christ. Here I have found a way to follow Christ that is leading me beyond myself into trying to do the will of God in his world.

The Recovery Family

—by Frederick Buechner

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