Christianity Today is best known for its magazines and websites, but there is plenty of other pots we have our hands in. I talked to Kevin Emmert, an associate editor for CT magazine, about his work on two partner projects with Zondervan: the recently published NIV Understand the Faith Study Bible - which got its origins with the Global Gospel Project - and a faith and work study Bible (title still to be determined), which is set to be published at the end of 2016.

When did you gain your passion for theology?

I would say in college. I first started reading the Bible on my own and getting excited about it the summer before my senior year of high school. My Dad is a pastor so I would often have questions that we would discuss. In college (at Montreat College), I started as a Music Business major. After one semester I didn't like it and decided to declare Biblical Studies as my major as sort of a backup or temporary major until I figured out what I wanted to do. I loved it so much that I stuck with it. I've only grown in my love for it since.

I also received a Master's in Historical and Systematic Theology at Wheaton College. I'm currently pursuing a PhD in Historical Theology through the London School of Theology, which I'm doing part-time while I work at CT.

When did you first start working on the Understand the Faith Study Bible and how did that project come about?

Editor in chief Mark Galli and I both worked on the Understand the Faith Study Bible together; the two-year editorial process started in August 2012. Mark had a vision for a Bible that would explore and discuss the major doctrines of the Christian faith and present those in a journalistic, accessible way to readers like the typical CT audience that's very intellectually curious.

The Bible was a part of the Global Gospel Project which started four years ago. We wanted to bring doctrine down from an abstract, esoteric level in which they can often be communicated, and make them accessible to the average person in the pew who want to know about their most pressing questions that they think about day in and day out.

What does the process of working through an entire Bible and adding commentary look like? That sounds like it could be a pretty painstaking process. Do you just start from Genesis and move through or is it more picking spots?

The two Bibles that I've worked on for CT definitely have taken a different approach than traditional study bibles, the ones that people often think of where they have notes at the bottom of every page, whether those notes are more exegetical or historical saying this word in this verse means this or when Paul was in Corinth this was what the atmosphere and landscape was like at the time. Or there are other approaches to Bibles that have a more devotional take where there are small devotions on every single page.

The Bibles that we have done, at least the last two Bibles, take a very different approach in that it's more thematic, more focused on specific doctrines that have arisen in the history of the church when Christians have studied the Scriptures. All that to say, we didn't work through the Bible verse by verse or book by book but we had this larger umbrella or framework and then we selected, for example, if we are going to talk about God the father, what are the 15-20 sub-doctrines that Christians have talked about when talking about God the Father? We discuss God as creator or God as sustainer of creation or the electing God. Then we would just try and think about where we would locate these in the Bible that seems most natural to the reader.

The process was a little messy at times. Upfront we decided the articles of doctrines we wanted to discuss, so I should also mention there is a ton of church history pieces, up-for-debate pieces that look at multiple viewpoints on a subject matter, doctrine, practice that Christians may disagree on, devotional pieces, charts, graphs, and so on. We decided on about 300 different articles that we wanted to include, and then found the right people to write them. My job was to research to find who the experts in particular topics are, and then I would invite them to write.

We had to assign all those articles and then make sure that everything was on certain timelines because we had to edit those, including to have a consistent tone and vision that is being communicated in each article. We had to make sure there was a unified voice, which was challenging. Many of the contributors were non-North Americans and a good portion of them, English was not their first language. We had people from Sri-Lanka and many places in Africa or Singapore writing for us whose native language was something other than English. That was the most challenging aspect for us.

Once everything was edited, we sent our edits to Zondervan and they made sure everything was in accord with their style. We would send all the articles to our advisory board—a group of seven professional theologians, folks like JI Packer, Howard Schneider, Krish Kandiah, Sarah Wilson, from all over the world from various backgrounds, both men and women who viewed all the articles to make sure they had theological integrity. We were able to ensure that the content reflected historic Christianity from a more evangelical stance.

What's the primary purpose of the faith and work Bible?

The primary goal for the faith and work Bible is to show the average Christian in the pew the intersection between faith and the work that we all do day in and day out, year after year. It's often been communicated throughout mostly recent church history within Evangelicalism that the way you should think about your work, especially if you are in a secular environment, is that the primary thing you can do as a Christian is evangelize to your co-workers, trying to be a good example to lost people around you. We in no way discredit that, but that there is actually more to work.

As human beings, we were made to work and so there's a lot going back to Genesis and this theology of creation saying, "What was God's original purpose for humanity?" It was be an image of Him, He created us in His likeness, and He set up Adam and Eve in the garden to till, to fill, to subdue the Earth, and to increase and multiply. It's communicating that there's a lot more to work especially for a Christian. You can see your work as something meaningful to culture, that you're contributing to the common good, and that, yes, of course you can evangelize to others, but you can bring glory to God even in small mundane things. You can still bring glory to Him because you are doing something you were made to do.

The way that the content of the faith and work Bible is organized is around those historic Christian doctrines as a lens to view our work. God as creator, humanity created in the image of God, sin, redemption, selfish desire, sanctification, regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit, Christ, etc. The goal is to try and get readers to think about Christian doctrine and that theology really does matter and has real life implications for their work.

What was the main difference in working through the two Bibles?

The biggest difference was the amount of contributors or authors that we had. With the Understand the Faith Study Bible, we had over 60 authors which required a lot more editorial effort on our end. The faith and work Bible was primarily produced by two people: David Kim who works at Redeemer Presbyterian Church and heads up the Center for Faith & Work, and Bethany Jenkins who is a fellow at that faith and work institute, writes for the Gospel Coalition, and has a law degree.

Because they were the main two contributors, there were fewer moving parts to oversee at once. That was the main difference between the two projects.

David was the primary visionary and author of the material so he organized all the content and he wrote all the doctrinal descriptions and the connecting points to our daily lives and how we can think about that doctrine in the context of our work. Bethany did something that makes this Bible very unique: she interviewed people in different professions-so a barista, a lawyer, a stay-at-home mom that does freelance work for a magazine, or a fashion designer-who are all Christians testifying to some aspect of their work. Bethany looked at the interviews for what themes cropped up and see what doctrine they matched with. The way those personal stories are framed, they fall under a specific doctrine which really bridges the gap between the theological enterprise and the more practical side. It really shows in real-life ways how a doctrine impacts someone's life, especially their work life.

You are also a resident meat maker at CT. When did you start doing that and what's your favorite thing to cure or smoke?

I first got into cooking when I lived off campus my senior year of college and had to learn how to cook on my own. After I graduated I worked as a cook at a restaurant for six or seven months in Asheville, NC. I couldn't find a job because Biblical Studies is not a very practical degree that gets you a job right out of college, so I actually took a job as a dishwasher and then a week later, became a prep cook and a line cook, so that's where I really formed a particular interest in cooking.

I do like to cure my own meats whether that's fish or duck and occasionally I'll smoke meats or make sausage. I haven't made sausage in a while, but sometimes I'll make a huge batch of sausage and put it in the freezer to take to family gatherings, or my wife and I can eat them, or I'll put them on pizzas.

Cured duck is probably my favorite, it's almost like a duck prosciutto the way I do it which is really simple. It's salty, delicious, and you can make chutneys or jams to go with it. My favorite thing I've smoked is probably mussels. I love smoked seafood. Shrimp is really good too, but mussels, once you steam and remove them, if you brine them, the salt makes them tenderer and more susceptible to the smoke. I smoke them for about an hour, and they get really smoky. They are tiny, almost like little pieces of popcorn that are really good.

Wes Jakacki is marketing manager at Christianity Today.