Scripture 04: What’s the point of reading the Bible?

you're listening to the rule of Life podcast from practicing the way in each season we explore an ancient practice from the way of Jesus and its relevance

for the modern era this is season 6 scripture [Music] [Music] [Music]

okay everybody here we are our final episode of the scripture series at bible project with the scholar team we have been exploring Seven Pillars of how to

read scripture and then in our final episode we get into kind of more how to read scripture as a spiritual discipline most of our conversation has been more

on like what is the Bible side of the equation which of course actually intuitively leads to how do you engage with it but I'd love just to assess out your wisdom of how to read it you know

not just informationally as mahand would put it but formally in such a way that it has the effect it was designed for so maybe to start I mean we left off in the

last episode talking about how it's communal literature for a very long time it would have been experienced out loud orally sitting with your house Church in

Philippi with 45 people and open in your courtyard and somebody's reading Ephesians to you in one sitting or whatever you know so I know you guys have been a proponent of trying to even though we're not in an oral culture

bring some level of that back I mean tell me more about how you know you recommend or imagine communities reading scripture together the simplest way is

the simplest way um most of us live somewhere yes where you could have um more than

yourself together in that room and um you could read the Bible out loud to each other and then talk about it but actually I do have something in mind a

little different than like what comes into people's minds with like Bible I would imagine people be like hey we're going to look at these 10 verses tonight and we're going to do a but that's not

exactly what you're saying yeah so um there's something Paul tells Timothy in one of his letters to him in the New Testament it's something he says don't stop doing this as you oversee these

house churches make sure this keeps happening MH and what he he says it's the public reading of scripture yes so we're just talking about an ancient

practice that the apostles said don't stop doing this which presumes that they were doing it and uh of just reading yeah larger chunks of scripture out loud

to each other with a community of people that you were learning how to be an apprentice of Jesus with and then you talk about his me there's many ways

you could yes do if you read you can read you can read The Gospel according to Matthew out loud in about two and a half hours and that's a long time it's

also an amount of time many of us regularly commit to sitting down and watch a movie you know so you you could read Philippians and you about exactly

right yes so I think it's just it sounds so simple it's almost silly but it's just like take it at Faith value there's

something to it I mean years ago I it's out of print and so we've recreated our own version but found this Bible that had no chapters and no verses and no subheadings and it was just kind of

single column and it transformed the way I read scripture because rather than reading like a chapter a day I either would just sit down and it turns out that Ephesians is actually like really

easy to read in one sitting and it's almost become my inclination like I'm reading from the New Testament this morning I ran out of time and only read half of you know Timothy and it felt weird to stop in the middle of a book

I'm like why would I do that it's like stopping in the middle of a chapter in a novel like you can do it but really you should at least get to the end of the chapter you know because I just realized just intuitively and the longer books

like genesis there was kind of these modules almost that have these natural kind of literary breaths where you kind of just naturally all right I'll I'll leave off there for now but it transform

form the way I interact with scripture so you're almost imagining that but in a communal setting which is what's new for me the thought of doing that in a living room with eight friends hearing

Philippians or Matthew if you're hardcore like Tim Macky you notice a lot more when you hear it all together you start to see things about the literary

design of the book and all of that um and I I think too so I think there's a modern example of how hearing scripture outloud and different texts together helps us

see Connections in the lectionary so churches who follow the lectionary people are trained to to put certain passages together and they hear them repeated every year and just for

listeners not from a lurgical tradition tell us what the so lectionary just has a a set of readings every week that that people are following and that that uh the homy or sermon in a service is

usually connected to like a selection from the Psalms and the Old Testament and the new yeah and but the lectionaries don't include all of the texts but we could do

that in different settings within our church in small groups around tables as we're eating or on Sunday services or or whatever we could make practices of

reading through uh both whole books together at one one time and selected passages that

have links that we want to that we want to meditate on and I think that would transform how we read and how we read it individually when we're at home on our

own well let's move to that I mean I would love just to hear now imagining more the psalm one kind of Ideal reader I would just love to hear from the three

of you no right or wrong answer how you I feel like the question is maybe flawed I was going to say how you read scripture you know prayerfully or in the morning or whatever and there's so many

I'm sure flawed assumptions that come into that you spend your day immersed in in these texts but um I would love just

to hear about how you approach the text as Disciples of Jesus you know whether that be through a a daily or

regular times of meditation or it it is there's another layer to it when you're have chosen as your vocational P complexities that you have

to face and yeah whether it's path of Joy or path of suffering or both to to um be a Bible nerd as what you're doing with your with your days so um on a

personal level um I have found that a commitment to praying the Psalms aloud one a day

has become a lifegiving rhythm for many years now but part of it actually is because the language and imagery of the Psalms is

sort of like a I don't know what you call it like a digest of how to personally process and talk with God about The Human Condition

yeah within the language of the rest of the story of the of the Bible um so that rhythm with the Psalms has become really pivotal for me in my

study journey through the rest of the Bible in a way that continues to surprise me so I actually do have a

beginning my day with time of prayer and reading scripture uh out loud to myself yeah tell us tell us about the out loud part oh well you just read it out

loud so uh and not trying to pull a nerd card I mean I we've all spent a long time trying to learn the languages the Bible was written in and so I do that

yes and that's very important to me as do most of our listeners you know read in the original Hebrew and I don't say that to try and show off but what I'm

saying is um there's a way of forming an a level of intimacy with the words that can happen in Translation yes the Bible was translated from Hebrew into Greek

yes before Jesus yes and most early followers of Jesus knew used that Bible their Hebrew Bible in Greek yes um so

and while that affect some things the what it's Unique when it comes to view of scripture different than the Quran or the Book of Mormon is that

translations are 100% like go for it they have the stamp of God's approval yeah totally and for those of you listening so like the reason sometimes the quotations in the New Testament

don't match the old test right is because they're quoting the suban the Greek translation and it's just a little bit different yeah so again the reason I bring it up is just um forming an

intimate personal connection with these words is a part of the journey and come into to love the language yes love it but press down on the out loud part oh

uh I don't why do you do it out loud yeah why out loud and is that something you recommend well again Psalm one yes the word meditate translate meditate

haga murmur the word means yeah to quietly say out loud so I I think there is actually something actually happen psychologically too yes um of using my

vocal cords of breathing because when you read out loud you have to work in Cadence with your breath you read slower yes yeah you experience it differently

than reading it silently and I think and so much of the language of these texts even if you're not reading it in the original language you pick up Rhythm

yeah Cadence connections word connections word repetition that I don't know I don't know how to a buddy of mine who's a lit professor and he said that

this is beyond my pay grade he said that the human brain processes words even written words through our auditory system so he was saying that if you read

scripture out loud it's magnified for your brain's ability to um Let It penetrate you it goes deeper into some I'm sure there a better scientific way

to say that but yes yeah I'm certain there's a physiological like layer something to experience of it absolutely so I think that's a really key part um

and then another key part that I've cultivated in other parts of my life is reading communities so the Bible project was generated out of a reading Community

between me and the friend John Collins yes um and you got a pretty good reading Community though so there's that um and now with

the B project scholarship team a really core Rhythm we have as a team uh is coming around a Biblical text for three hours a number of times a month wow it's

just and we just read it out loud and talk about it together W concordances and dictionaries and it's one of my favorite things that we do be a fly on that yeah and part of it was just like

this needs to be the anchor of everything we produce as an organization because that's what we're inviting people to learn how to do yeah um and then I have a community of friends that

I met through grad through my educational Journey MH and we all live in different parts of the globe but we get together a handful of times a year and work on parts of the Bible just

studying yeah and then we come together and read it out loud together and share what we're learning so I guess there's kind of multiple layers um but there's

so as many circles as you can think there are ways to do it it's infinitely flexible in that sense but it's just saying forming a personal connection and

a communal connection I think is vital and both have been really lifegiving beautiful for me but the read through in a year is not

something that for me has proven to to be um fruitful over the long run I I I I just can't because I'm just like I'm

skipping over all the good stuff like I just I go slow now and I can't I don't know the answer to this question but I I would love your thoughts of wisdom for people that are like brand new to

following Jesus yes and have never read the Bible before and are still getting their head around the mental maps of the biblical Writers Do you think that kind of let's say earlier in the spiritual

journey that a practice like that is more helpful I do I do and then as you kind of begin to get your head around it not that you ever map it then it's more

like meditation study like deeper shorter 100% so kind kind of a progression over the life of discipleship yeah thank that's been my intuition I don't know right for naming

that that's really important and that's been that was characterizes my experience it's like you meet some new Christians like yeah I read the New Testament last week like oh wow yeah it's phenomenal and that's like probably

the Holy Spirit like generated that I need to read the New Testament this week you know type it's actually not that it's actually not that long Old Testament is way longer but the New Testament you can you can take in in a

week or two [Music] practicing the way is a crowdfunded nonprofit made possible by the circle and other givers the circle is a group of people from all over the world who

believe deeply in the work of spiritual formation and discipleship and give monthly to see formation integrated into the church at large I'm Brandon and my wife's name is Emma we're from wakon

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theway.org [Music] what about the two of you how do you engage daily or regularly with scripture in a way that is yeah formative quite

honestly is is tough to differentiate like spiritual prce practice of reading the scriptures when it's done vocationally yeah especially it's a unique Challenge and

educationally on three levels engaging these texts and so I'm like okay is this the line of like now I'm in my devotional time like is it am I being formed am I being formed right now it's

like yeah I think so across all of those uh but to get outside of just myself my own reading I've committed to discussing these texts not only at work with a crew

but with people who aren't in biblical scholarship and so it it helps me stay out of viory towers yes of studying the scriptures and you know gaining knowledge about these fields and these

arguments and topics and just going okay when the rubber meets the road how do we discuss this so I'm committed to that and while I do that and I do that with a couple of folks every week they don't

know each other from from Adam and so that's that's always funny you hear different things and I go oh have you considered this and they go have you thought about this and I I feel that Mutual benefit of doing so but even in my

personal time I'm always committed to reading Genesis 1-1 over interesting and over and over

again it is my favorite section of all of scripture and my teammates will tell you James that and James right shout out to my

boy anytime we reflect for three hours on a text you will always if not almost always mhm hear me bringing up the

elements of Genesis 1-1 that are found in a particular text whether through a character set of words a setting it is

so ingrained in my cognition because I believe it is the foundation yeah for the rest of the story and I'm convinced if if you learn how to read these 11

chapters um or just have a better tool set you can read the rest of the literature interesting I'm very convinced of that and so if I'm reading Matthew I'm always thinking about okay where the garden bits what's going on

can and ab wise what's going where's the flood like there's a flood going on and and so go on and so forth and so that is just a couple things I typically

beautiful Britney what about you yeah so I I I think what you were saying about distinguishing between devotional and academic reading you've trained in spiritual Direction too so you've been

in these two worlds I feel like I'm always reading the same way mhm but in but with different approaches so I and

if I'm reading in the morning I when I sit down and have my coffee I will often read the Bible but I sometimes I just talk to God about what's yeah what's going on or whatever so that time is not

always the same um but if I'm sitting down reading my Bible in the early morning then I might read a short section and meditate on it I might think about where do you know how would I see

myself in this story I might uh ask myself some reflection questions like this is talking about how the world

is firmly shaken you know it can never be moved does does the world feel like it's shaking to me right now and if so in what ways and then how does trusting

that God is is ruler over all speak to me in this moment but I'm always also following where my curiosity

leads and so if I'm reading in the early morning I come across a word even if I'm reading an English translation I think oh is this the same word that's used in that other passage and pretty soon I'm

on my Bible software and I'm doing all this digging because you know that that is part of the richness of my experience of

scripture um so I think that's part of it and reading in community is really important to me the work that we do together yes and other just

conversations various ways um with other people in my life and but then another way that I read in community is by reading uh from other interpreters who

come specifically who come from different backgrounds so I read I mean I read a wide range of things I've been not reading as much recently but I I

read a wide range of scholarship but I really have felt so nourished in the last several years by reading work from

from africanamerican and Latino Latino ameran and African and Asian Asian-American Scholars who are just coming with different sets of questions

and experiences that help me see things that I would never have seen in the text great I'm so glad you named that

that um the history the historical community and then the global community of people who are writing down what they

learned from scripture is is very valuable partner that's sort of a that's just as important to cultivate extraordinary gift of the time we live in lots of terrible things about our

time but what a gift I mean some of you may be listening and thinking I wish I could read the Bible Tim macki you can and any three you know what I mean through all the Bible project resources you can read the Bible with Gregory of

Nissa you can read the Bible with Augustin you can read the Bible with Watchman KNE you know what I mean it's amazing the way that we can engage with scripture with the global

historic church in unprecedented ways really in church history yeah the scripture practice is a 4-week experience designed to be run in your

church small group or community that combines teaching conversation and spiritual exercises all designed to learn how to read scripture for

formation not just information if you come on the scripture practice you will not just learn about scripture you will learn how to read it in such a way that

you meet Jesus on the page and are formed into a person of Love Like Him the scripture practice is completely free thanks to the generosity of our

friends in the circle and other givers available now at practicing the way.org [Music] maybe as we wind down and I want to

honor your time but you know just what hokma what wisdom would the three of you pass on to people who really want to read

scripture um not just with the right kind of literary theological framework that th% Bon huffer's interpretation but really want to read it in such a way that what you're talking about Tim where

you find yourself more and more compassionate for people that make decisions you don't like or where you're finding wisdom and other perspectives where you are being formed into people

of Christlike love can I read a quote from so this is actually adapted from Edward hirs how to read a poem but I found it in Judy

Fentress Williams holy imagination and it says read these texts to yourself in the middle of the night turn on a single lamp and read them while you're alone in an otherwise dark

room or while someone else sleeps next to you read them when you're wide awake in the early morning fully alert say them over to yourself in a place where silence Reigns and the den of the

culture the constant buzzing noise that surrounds us has momentarily stopped these words have come from a great distance to find you

lovely these texts are not designed to be mastered they Master you and allow that process to happen no

matter how slow or quickly that may happen that is a way of approaching these texts that will permeate um throughout one's discipleship to

Jesus don't try to master it there's too much water in the well yeah you will never have as many buckets as you will need yeah think draw from it all you

read Robert mahand shaped by the word has this whole piece on how the modern the way that we're formed to read by our life by reading the news in the morning

and reading social media captions and quickly reading copy on a website to make a dinner reservation forms our brain to try to control our

life like we want to go out and master information so we can control our life and have better outcomes and that's how we are formed to read from our earliest years in grade school but you know he

would say that the whole point of the spiritual life is actually to surrender and so that way of reading is actually like very counterproductive when it comes to biblical text and he's not

saying you shouldn't go study and nerd out read commentaries what he's saying you have to read in a way where you're you're trying to be mastered in your language you're trying to bring your

heart to a place of surrender and trust you know that's what I hear you saying [Music] absolutely S one about from you well just as a footnote to that I think that

is what makes being a Bible nerd or a pastor or Ministry leader we teaching the Bible it's some regular part of what you do it's what makes it actually such

a liability yeah because in that act you are yourself engaging with scripture so that you can do something

for somebody else or have something to offer to somebody else and just that sound good in front of somebody else sound intelligent sound smart or get them to do something that you want them

to do and it's just a very delicate scenario that you need to be hyper self-aware that there is a relationship to scripture that I'm

cultivating that's non-utilitarian it's it's just about the journey that I'm on of following Jesus apart from what I'm

going to do yes with it and I think um in my own experience I started reading any of these texts because I became a Apprentice to Jesus in my early 20s I

would have never read books in general much less this book uh before I

became a follower of Jesus and I think I'm so grateful that for me following Jesus be came before the Bible my

encounter with the Bible and I know that's not true for everybody but I do invite people um to reframe what they're doing uh why

they're reading these texts and to say what if I view reading scripture as one of my expressions

one of many but one of of my devotion to Jesus and its purpose is to illuminate him and that I'll find all of my

questions addressed in some way uh if I make that the fundamental aim and I think if I were to try and name underneath all of what motivates me

to do all of this stuff related to the Bible it's truly that it's that to illuminate he said these texts are about him and illuminate him and I want to be

more like him than not you know and so people read the Bible for lots of different reasons and I think it might be fruitful to examine why do I think I

read these texts and what if I were to Tinker with those motivations some that might be a journey I would invite you know those listening to to to go well to

all three of you um I'm so deeply grateful for your time for your wisdom and output of wisdom but far more so just for your lives and your Fidelity to

Jesus and how these texts shape our understanding of who Jesus is just I'm reading Isaiah right now with my 16-year-old son and before each book we

watch one of your Bible overview videos and I was just sitting there thinking as somebody that grew up again in a tradition High view of the Bible but man we did not read the Bible this way and I

just thinking what a gift that my son will never have to go through the decade of angst and almost losing my faith I had to go through because he's being raised into what he does with it we'll

see but he's been raised in this consciousness of scripture and I just the gift that you have been and the organization behind you and with you and

in front of you to The Wider church is I don't think we could possibly quantify it so bless you guys and yeah thank you so much yeah thank you