A few days prior to my graduation from seminary I asked Dr.
Ellsworth Kalas, my preaching mentor, to write a charge in the back of
my bible. He inscribed nine short sentences of blessing. At the heart
of the charge, with a mere 11 words, he captures the life and work of a
minister.
Love the Word. Love your work. Love people with a passion.
From time to time someone will ask me, “Why these readers?” My simple
response: Loving the Word. So instead of more flowery language, permit
me to offer a few words of pragmatic guidance on the impractical
vocation of loving the Word of God.
1. Invoke the Holy Spirit. The ancient liturgy simplifies and
clarifies. When the Lord Jesus ascended he promised to be with us
always, in the power of your Word and Holy Spirit. [1]
John Wesley, in the preface to his notes on the Old Testament offers some “best practices,” as relates to reading Scripture.
Serious and earnest prayer should be constantly used before we consult
the oracles of God; seeing ‘Scripture can only be understood through
the same Spirit whereby it was given.’ Our reading should likewise be
closed with prayer, that what we read may be written on our hearts. [2]
2. Read for relationship not results. Dr. Robert Mulholland, in his
celebrated book, Shaped by the Word, makes a contrast between
“informational” and “formational” approaches to Scripture.
Human cultures are increasingly shaped by an informational mode of
being and doing. This informational mode is an integral part of what I
call the ‘functional’ orientation of human cultures. Our cultures seek
more information (new facts, new bodies of knowledge, new techniques,
new methods, new systems, new programs) in order to improve their
functional control of their world.
Instead of the text being an object we control and manipulate according
to our own insight and purposes, the text becomes the subject of the
reading relationship; we are the object that is shaped by the text. [3]
3. Immersion not Extraction. Our functional approach to scripture is
pervasive. We constantly search for a genius insight, a spiritual
nugget, a pearl for the next sermon, some fresh new application point.
All the while, right there on the surface, the wisdom of God shines
like the sun. In a recent conversation about Scripture a student
remarked that the Bible was a gold mine, implying the necessity of
mining it for treasure. An epiphany struck me in that instant and I
retorted, “The Word of God doesn’t have to be mined for gold. It is the
gold. In fact, the Psalmist says, “It is more precious than gold, than
much pure gold. It is sweeter than honey; than honey from the comb.”
While I champion inductive bible study (IBS), I here champion a way
prerequisite to IBS. Immersive reading must precede inductive study.
When the reader becomes abandoned to the world of the text the text
becomes available and applicable to the world of the reader.
4. Less is more. Slow down. Thomas Merton once said something to this
effect concerning his approach to reading Scripture, “Cover less
ground, more slowly.” Psalm 1 brilliantly reminds us that “[o]ur
delight is in the law of the Lord and on his Law [we] meditate day and
night.” The Spirit longs to awaken our delight in the Word of God. I
have read the bible in a daily fashion (but hardly every day!) since I
was 14. Over the years I’ve developed an unfortunate familiarity with
much of the book. It’s not the familiarity that breeds deeper love, but
one that broods contempt.
The Sermon on the Mount serves as a good example. I got the gist of it.
I knew what it was about. Truth be told, I spent more time reading The
Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Williard’s acclaimed book on Matthew 5-7 than
I did the Sermon itself. The most significant discourse in human
history, spoken by the second person of the Trinity somehow rated as
fly-over” country for me. I repent.
For the past 40 days, my morning practice looks like this. I sit down
on my front porch cathedral, coffee in hand, cue up Matthew 5-7 on my
cell phone, invoke the Spirit, read the Sermon aloud and focus my
attention on hearing every word. [4]
Following this I see what bubbles up in my spirit to meditate on and
pray through. My mind takes on the shape of a record being grooved by
the Word of God in the power of the Spirit. This little practice is
changing me; slowly transforming the chaos of my distractedness into
the creative order of Love.
5. Eat this book! From Ezekiel (3:1) to Jeremiah to John (Rev. 10:10),
those caught up in the intensity of inspiration understand that mere
reading and thinking will never get it done. Eugene Peterson, in his
book by this same title, likens the best reading practices to a dog
chewing on a bone. He points out the Hebrew word hagah usually
translates as “meditate,” as in Psalm 1 and 63. However he references
Isaiah’s use of the term at 31:4, As a lion or a young lion growls over
his prey. . .” noting,
“‘Meditate’ seems more suited to what I do in a quiet chapel on my
knees with a candle burning on the altar. . . But when Isaiah’s lion
and my dog meditated they chewed and swallowed, using teeth and tongue,
stomach and intestines: Isaiah’s lion meditating his goat (if that’s
what it was); my dog meditating his bone. There is a certain kind of
writing that invites this kind of reading, soft purrs and low growls as
we taste and savor, anticipate and take in the sweet and spicy,
mouth-watering and soul-energizing morsel of words—‘O taste and see
that the Lord is good!’” (Ps. 34:8) [5]
6. Read Together. Why not everyone just be a law unto themselves as
relates to reading Scripture? (i.e. wherever the Spirit leads). The
richest reading happens on the way called together. So let us write
these words on flash cards and hide them in our hearts together. Let’s
twitter about this word when we get up and when we lie down and let’s
talk about it when we walk along the road together. Let’s bind this
word to our wrists and text it to one another in the library. Let us
fix it on our laptops as screen savers, sketch it on the walls like
graffiti and sing pray and preach about it in Chapel. In this fashion
the Word day by day shapes our community and by the power of the Spirit
becomes enfleshed in the streets. In the celebrated book, Life
Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, ...how inexhaustible are the
riches that open up for those who by God’s will are privileged to live
in daily fellowship of life with other Christians!
That’s what this Common Text Reader is all about. It's an experiment to
see if a disconnected, dislocated federation of people who happen to
take classes at the same school can practice their way into holy love
together. It’s what we call ALICE, short for “A Life in Common
Experiment.” (Learn more about ALICE on the following page.)
7. Practice the Word in the World. The great enlightenment project sold
us a bill of goods in promising that right thinking leads to right
practice. The Hebrews had it right all along. Right practice leads to
right thinking. According to the Great Preacher, there are two kinds of
people. Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into
practice. . . and Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not
put them into practice. . . The only difference? Practice. Only
following Jesus leads us into the narrow, winding way of the Word in
the World, blurring the boundaries between Samaria and synagogue,
seminaries and slums and suburbs.
As the old adage goes, “practice makes perfect.” For a thousand
uncommon days at the launch of the Common Era we beheld the perfection
of practice. By the grace and power of the Word and Holy Spirit working
together, practice will make Perfect in us.
Prayer and Faith,
John David (J.D.) Walt, Jr.
Dean of the Chapel
ENDNOTES:
1. “A Service of Word and Table I, United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 1989) 10.
2. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed. (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1979), XIV, 252f.
3. M. Robert Mulholland Jr., Shaped by the Word (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1985, 2000) 50-51, 57.
4. Why read aloud? I am increasingly convinced that the Word of God was
meant to be heard even more than read. Think about it. The Hebrew
religion is an aural religion. Prior to being written down the
revelation was carefully preserved and passed down orally. When it was
written down, who could possibly have their own copy, much less read
it? Our Father exhorts us to “Listen to him.” Listening requires
hearing. Hearing requires speaking. To see the text with one’s eyes, to
speak with one’s mouth, to hear with one’s ears, to engage with one’s
mind and to embrace in one’s heart—this is approaches a fully embodied
handling of Scripture.
5. Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of
Spiritual Reading (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006) 2
