Review: "The Upside-Down Kingdom Bible” By Preston Sprinkle

It’s easy to feel churlish about study Bibles. There’s one for every lifestyle and perhaps every season of life, and the differences between them are seldom obvious. For me personally, the idea of purchasing a whole new Bible just to get the 'study bits' offered in its margins is a little ludicrous. But I’ve made an exception for the NIV Upside-Down Kingdom Bible, because it has several features that are of great interest to me as a same-sex attracted person with an admittedly counter-cultural worldview. I believe these same features will be of interest to fellow TFT members:

• The study Bible was edited by none other than Preston Sprinkle, president of the US-based Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. Sprinkle and his organisation are well-known on both sides of the Atlantic, due in no small part to his bestselling books on sexuality and the many materials he has published to equip churches and individuals to minister to those with same-sex attraction.

• Contributors to the NIV Upside- Down Kingdom Bible include several names TFT members are likely to find familiar, such as Gregory Coles and Rachel Gilson. Gregory Coles’ Single Gay Christian (2017) and No Longer Strangers (2021) have become modern theological benchmarks, as has Rachel Gilson’s Born Again This Way (2020). Another contributor who may be less familiar but whose work I personally draw great inspiration from is A.J. Swoboda, who published The Gift of Thorns earlier in 2024.

• The themes and topics that highlight scripture throughout this Bible are not strictly sexuality-related, but cover a range of 29 themes that are controversial in today's society and even within the Church. A few of the themes are fundamental, such as: baptism, family and kinship, grace, holiness, Sabbath, slavery, and women. But most would be considered timely, and perhaps precariously so, such as: abortion and reproduction, creation care, divorce, mental health, migration, politics, race and ethnicity, science, social justice, and sexuality and gender.
 

The 29 themes explored in this study Bible appear as sidebars on nearly every one of its 1696 pages. Most themes additionally receive one or more full-page or multi-page articles, interspersed throughout. The sidebars and articles are placed strategically. When I started reading this Bible, I decided beforehand that I would not simply flip through it and read all the sidebars, though I was strongly tempted to do so! Rather, I committed myself to starting in the Book of Matthew and taking the supporting items in context, pausing to read them as I encountered them. This has taken discipline, but I find that the additions are succinct and readable enough so as to enrich my reading of the biblical text without distracting from it.
Of course, I made an exception for the handful of sections related to same-sex sexuality, such as the one in the Book of Romans, which includes a full article on the facing page of the first chapter. In response to Paul’s firm message against same-sex eroticism (Romans 1:26-32), the article coherently sums up the biblical case for sexuality as a gift reserved for married men and women, and includes a key nuance that same-sex attracted persons will find reassuring:
Paul does not condemn same-sex attraction but same-sex sexual behaviour. (...) It’s the act, not the attraction, that’s in focus here ('Sexuality and gender', p. 1445).

Other segments on same-sex sexuality and sexuality in general receive a carefully worded defence in light of today’s cultural currents. They reinforce biblical truth while extending a proper measure of compassion. The language is friendly and readable throughout.

I find the NIV Upside-Down Kingdom Bible fascinating because it does not reach out to any particular group of people the way other study Bibles typically do, such as women, men, children, teenagers, LGB+ folks, etc. Rather, it aims to remind any reader of the many ways that the Bible speaks to the difficult social questions confronting the world today. Preston Sprinkle says he hopes readers will ‘see how relevant the Bible is for understanding the public nature of our faith’ (p. vi). He tells us that the title ‘Upside-Down’ intentionally evokes the cultural subversion Jesus talks about in Matthew 20:26 (“whoever wants to become great among you must become your servant”) and 23:12 (“those who humble themselves will be exalted”). It bears mentioning that despite its subversive angle, the NIV Upside-Down Kingdom Bible at no point advances a new gospel, new moralities, or new sexualities. For this reason, it is both highly original and deeply refreshing.  

This review was originally published in the Winter 2024 edition of the TFT magazine, Ascend. Click the button below to download your copy.