Hello and welcome to my site! My name is Les Bridgeman.
I grew up in Niagara Falls, New York with a love for different cultures, books, and especially the Bible. My grandmother was an immigrant from Lebanon so I heard many stories about the “old” country when I was young. I was raised in Pentecostal churches so after graduating from Niagara Falls High School, I went to a small Pentecostal Bible college in Rhode Island. While in college I came to the conclusion that I could no longer be Pentecostal. (Here’s a blog post I wrote on the topic.)
One summer I decided to visit a different church in Western New York every weekend because I wanted to see a broader view of Christianity. After Bible college I went to Gordon-Conwell, a non-denominational seminary, where I met people from many different church backgrounds. And one of the people I met was my future wife.
After graduation we got married. Two years later we moved far away, to Singapore, where I served as a high school Bible teacher and middle school principal. (I had wanted to teach the Bible overseas since I was in high school.) Since I didn’t have curriculum, I started writing my own lessons, which led to my first book, The Life of Christ: Curriculum for High School Bible Teachers, available on Gumroad, and Teachers Pay Teachers. In total, we spent 15 years in Asia, including Seoul, South Korea, and two cities in China—Tianjin and Qingdao.
My interests are both scholarly and devotional. While I enjoy reading academic books, my goal in writing is not to sound like a scholar. I want to make academic ideas accessible to a general audience. I also get frustrated at times with academic theology because it can miss the heart of the issue. For example, we can talk about prayer for hours, but do we pray? So a devotional perspective is important to me.
The blog page on this site contains about 380 posts on a variety of biblical and theological topics. I have also written articles on education, college and career, and my personal journey. To get a sense of my writing, check out the featured articles. You can also search posts by categories or use the search bar at the top of the page.
In addition to writing self-study Bible courses, I have written three devotional books.
I have also written three historical/theological books.
To contact me, send an email to biblebridge@gmail.com.