Maybe you’ve heard the line, which I remember from youth group: “You may be the only Bible your friends ever read.” It’s not a comforting thought. And it’s a lot of pressure for a teenager! But the saying has a ring of truth in that we shape our views on God’s Word based on what we see from the people who claim to believe and teach it.

That’s what Michael and Lauren Green McAfee have found in their research and conversations with millennials. Millennials tend to admire Jesus, but their view of the Bible (without having read it) largely reflects negative experiences with Christians. The McAfees wrote their new book, Not What You Think: Why the Bible Might Be Nothing We Expected Yet Everything We Need, for millennials, born between 1980 and 1995. Believe it or not, this is the largest generation in American history: 78 million, or one in three adults today. Within five years this generation will account for 75 percent of the U.S. workforce. So we’re not talking about the future of the church so much as the present.

The McAfees joined me on Gospelbound to discuss happiness, authority, suffering, and the surprises we find when we read the Bible for ourselves.