Reading the Bible vs. Listening to Scripture.

Joel B. Green (2007) writes,“[…] we come to Scripture with respect, in gratitude, and

ready to embrace and be embraced into God’s own ways and work” (41). Green is

specifically speaking to the Christian approach to both Old and New Testaments and the

necessity to view each with equality. His instruction is applicable whether we are weighing

out the holiness codes of Leviticus or the possible moral meaning of a parable. But his

teaching seems to be of a more personal nature offering a model to perceptively judge what

God is asking from and of the reader. But the personal must also be influenced by the larger

body of orthodoxy otherwise the reader might become prone to excising certain texts from

his or her purview. In other words, we listen for the voice of the Spirit Who indwells us,

while also hearing the voice of the Church that surrounds us, so that we may hear within the

limits of Christian convention. Consequently, the Spirit and the Church serve as partners to

bring about spiritual transformation by constructing patterns of discernment (cf. McKnight)

to bring about that result.

The Bible is firstly a personal book. Sure it is filled with stories of people who we do

not know and who dwelt in distant cultures. But the same Holy Spirit presently at work in the

reader was also previously working in the biblical characters and events. Approaching the

text with “respect” and “gratitude” means the reader is aware of and gives deference to how it

was; but also anticipates a fresh hearing that only deepens his or her appreciation of God’s

personal work. It should, then, be a reasonable expectation to personally see God at work

then and now. And in that vision of God’s work the reader would hear from the Lord, through

the text, and be challenged to respond in some manner. Green (2007) posits that this type of

reading can be hazardous to the individual’s comfort because it calls for a “reordering of the

world” and “repentance for attitudes of defiance” (59). The result, however, is an imagination

that is “hospitable to conversion” (Green 2007, 59). One might say that engaging the Bible as

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personal Scripture should lead to radical transformation as the Spirit works through what was

to bring awareness to what is, and to prepare the reader for what he or she can become. God

also provides a structure by which this process can be worked out.

The radical transformation I speak of requires a corporate context to which the

individual is accountable. I would call this the Church and, more specifically, the various

orthodox traditions of the faith. A forsaking of the church or tradition for a purely

individualistic religion is akin to cutting off the nose to spite the face. That is, the Church and

the traditions are the building blocks of community that should assist the person to avoid the

extreme of piousness or the opposite idea of worthlessness. Rather, the Church and the

traditions provide a pattern of discernment to enable transformation. It is within the context

of the Church and her traditions that we can test the validity of those whispers we hear from

the Scriptures. But the Church also offers us the accountability of the whole of Scripture that

otherwise might be avoided by the individual.

Being an active member of a faith community gives the individual a broader

perspective on the whole of Scripture. We cannot avoid the human factor or dismiss the

radical corruption of human nature. In other words, left to ourselves we are defenseless to test

the voice of the text and to know whether it is God or self. Because of the corrupt nature of

humanity there is a tendency to remain with what is comfortable and with that that serves our

fallen nature. The Church and the local faith community bear the responsibility to challenge

our comfort by exposing the individual to portions of Scripture that he or she might otherwise

avoid because of its disruptive nature. This, of course, assumes the local body is itself

walking in health and faithfulness to the larger context of orthodoxy.

In the end we hear the Scriptures by coming to them with respect and gratitude but

also by being fully prepared to hear and obey. We test what we have heard in the context of

the church as God’s avenue for accountability and balance. The church serves the individual

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not just through accountability but also by exposure to the grand narrative of the whole Bible.

References

Green, J. (2007). Seized by truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture. Nashville, TN: Abingdon

Press.

McKnight, S. (2008). The blue parakeet: Rethinking how we read the Bible. Grand Rapids,

MI: Zondervan