Cultivating the Practice of Reading Scripture
by Joel B. Green
While teaching at a conference some years ago, I was startled
when a participant announced that he could not imagine how any
Republican could claim to take the Bible seriously. Not long afterward, I
witnessed a repeat performance in another setting, except in this case
we were told that Republicans alone read Scripture correctly. This
reminds me of what I imagine to be a first-century “battle for the
Bible”: Pharisees, Christ-followers, and Sadducees, all reading the same
Scriptures but reading them quite differently, and reaching diverse
conclusions about the nature of faithfulness to God. How can this be?
Clearly, a lot has to do with our formation as readers of Scripture
and not only with the words written on the page. This underscores the
importance of reading Scripture as a “practice,” since the idea of
“practice” assumes circularity: Formed by our reading of Scripture, we
become better readers of Scripture. This is not because we become better
skilled at applying biblical principles. The practice of reading
Scripture is not about learning how to mold the biblical message to
contemporary lives and modern needs. Rather, the Scriptures yearn to
reshape how we comprehend our lives and identify our greatest needs. We
find in Scripture who we are and what we might become, so that we come
to share its assessment of our situation, encounter its promise of
restoration, and hear its challenge to serve God’s good news.
Paradoxically, perhaps, cultivating the practice of reading Scripture
first prioritizes Christian formation more generally. This is because
there is no necessary, straight line from reading the biblical materials
to reading them Christianly; sharply put, one can be “biblical” without
being “Christian.”
When Jesus criticizes two disciples on the Emmaus Road for their
failure to believe what the prophets had spoken, the problem was not
their inability to hear the prophets or take them seriously. Jesus
asked, “Wasn’t it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and
then enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:27 CEB). “Of course it was
necessary!” we might say, but the question remains, which prophets
actually document this necessity? “Isaiah 53,” we might respond, but we
would then need to acknowledge that we can say this only because we have
learned to read in just this way. After all, Isaiah 53 never mentions
the Messiah, and Jesus’ contemporaries were unaccustomed to thinking of
Isaiah’s Servant as a suffering Messiah. The problem faced by Jesus’
disciples was their lack of the cognitive categories required for making
sense of the Scriptures in this way. They needed more than a
commonsense reading of a biblical text. That Isaiah spoke of Jesus
was something they had to learn. Accordingly, Luke records: “Then he
interpreted for them the things written about himself in all the
scriptures.” (Luke 24:27 CEB).
This example speaks to the integrated nature of Christian practices,
and especially to the ways those practices shape us as readers of
Scripture. Christian formation helps us to read the Scriptures
Christianly. So it is worth reflecting on the difference it makes to our
reading of Scripture that we regularly recite the Apostles’ Creed. What
difference does it make to our reading of Scripture that we meet each
other repeatedly at the Lord’s Table, that we speak often with people
who do not share our faith, that we who share a common faith in Christ
eat together regularly, and that we pray to Jesus as though he were God?
(And what difference does it make when we do not engage in such
practices as these?)
Of course, reading Scripture is itself a central Christian practice,
so we may ask how we cultivate this practice among the others—a question I take up more fully in
Seized by Truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture (Abingdon, 2007). Here let me make six suggestions.
(1)
Reading Scripture is not enough. Theological and ecclesial
formation inform and are informed by reading Scripture. Communities that
put Scripture into practice through seeking the Holy Spirit, confessing
sins and forgiving each other, praying for the sick, and offering good
news to others find themselves being prepared to read Scripture.
(2)
Read and read again. It is easy to turn time with Scripture into a
game of “Twenty Questions”: how to have a happy relationship, learn
nancial faithfulness, or whatever. A sharp line can be drawn between
utilitarian approaches that treat the Bible as a how-to manual or a
database for addressing my questions, and the formation of
Scripture-shaped minds that understand God and God’s creation through
Scripture-shaped lenses. The latter requires patient, deliberate reading—reading, as it were, for no good reason but for the sake of having our dispositions and re exes shaped by Scripture.
(3)
Read slowly. Those of us who find ourselves moving back and forth
between blogs, email, texts, news outlets, and social networks on our
smartphones and tablets need different rules of engagement for reading
Scripture. This practice concerns not how fast I can get through today’s
reading, but how slowly, combining prayer, reading, and contemplation.
To crib Jesus’ words, “Let these words sink into your ears” (Luke 9:44
NRSV).
(4)
Involve yourself. If the last century or more has imagined
education as the process of stepping back to observe, assess, and attain
knowledge, then this practice calls for different habits. This learning
is self-involving, a means by which we hear God’s address. Why do we
resist this text but embrace that one? What does it mean that we are
included in the community of God’s people addressed by this text?
(5)
Read together. Inasmuch as scriptural texts have their origins
and purpose deeply rooted in the community of God’s people, we ought to
nd ways to read in community. By this I refer to the importance of study
groups where our assumptions and views are tested, but even more I mean
to counter the temptation to imagine that Scripture is simply for me
and about me, or that I am tasked with determining its significance
apart from the larger church, historically and globally.
(6)
Refuse to distinguish between reading the Bible for a class or
sermon and reading the Bible for Christian formation. We come to
Scripture for different reasons at different times, but it would be a
mistake to imagine that preparing an exegesis paper or sermon required
qualitatively different protocols. Should we leave our theological and
ecclesial locations behind when doing exegesis? Should work with
Scripture in sermon preparation bypass the reservoir of my regular
reading practices? Should the crises that arise as I encounter God’s
voice in Scripture not shape my reading of these texts with and for
others?
As with Christian practices in general, so with developing scriptural
patterns of faith and life: the destination is the journey itself. This
is a journey in which we discover that the work of scriptural reading
is not about transforming an ancient message into a modern application
but about the transformation of our lives though Scripture. The Bible
does not present us with texts to be mastered, then, but with a Word
intent on shaping our lives, on mastering us.
This article published at Catalystresources.org.
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