Sharing God's Word in the Age of Social Media: What I Have Learned from Bringing the Bible in Its Jewish Context to Digital Audiences

Marty Solomon's presentation explores the opportunities, challenges, and lessons involved in communicating the Bible to contemporary digital audiences through podcasts, social media, online teaching, and other digital formats. Drawing on his experience with BEMA Discipleship and The BEMA Podcast, Solomon will discuss what he has learned from presenting the Bible within its historical and Jewish context to audiences engaging Scripture through twenty-first-century media.

The presentation considers how digital communication changes the relationship between teacher, text, and audience; how historical and cultural context can be communicated clearly outside the traditional classroom; and how online platforms can encourage audiences to ask better questions about biblical texts rather than simply consume simplified answers.

Particular attention will be given to Solomon's experience of bringing the Hebrew Bible, Jewish context, ancient Near Eastern background, and the historical world of Scripture into digital public discourse, as well as to the possibilities and limitations of social media and podcasting as environments for biblical education.

Marty Solomon is President of Impact Campus Ministries and host of The BEMA Podcast. He is an author, Bible teacher, speaker, content creator, and the creator of BEMA Discipleship, an educational project devoted to exploring the biblical text within its historical, cultural, and Jewish contexts.

Solomon earned a Bachelor of Arts in Christian Ministries from Boise Bible College. In 2008, he travelled to Israel and studied with Bible teacher Ray Vander Laan, an experience that became influential in the development of his approach to biblical study and discipleship.

As Solomon expanded his study of the historical and Jewish contexts of Scripture, he developed BEMA Discipleship as a means of sharing those perspectives with wider audiences. The BEMA Podcast was launched in 2016 and has subsequently developed into a substantial digital resource for people interested in reading biblical texts in conversation with their ancient historical and cultural settings.

Solomon's teaching emphasizes asking better questions of biblical texts, understanding Scripture within the world of its original authors and audiences, and engaging historical and Jewish interpretive contexts. His work combines biblical teaching, podcasting, digital resources, speaking, study trips, and campus ministry.

He currently serves as President of Impact Campus Ministries, an organization in which BEMA Discipleship developed as part of its broader work with university students and young adults.

The BEMA Podcast developed from Solomon's BEMA Discipleship material and was launched in 2016 as a way of making extended biblical teaching available to a global digital audience. Its approach emphasizes the historical and cultural setting of biblical literature, the Jewish context of Scripture, discussion, questioning, and sustained engagement with the biblical text.

This background is directly relevant to Solomon's EHJ 2026 presentation. His session addresses not only biblical interpretation but also the transmission of biblical knowledge through contemporary digital media — particularly the practical experience of communicating complex historical, textual, and theological material through podcasts, online communities, and social media.