ALIVE TO GOD IN SCRIPTURE I rejoice in the content of your laws as if I were rejoicing over great wealth. Psalm 119:14 The Bible contains 3,500-year-old wisdom about how to interact with Scripture, which was read out loud. Listeners learned how to eat and digest the words, which dynamically formed and informed their lives. This way of being alive to God in Scripture requires a shift in how we moderns read and process the Bible. We have to learn a new way of learning. Reading the Bible was never the goal Many feel guilty about not reading the Bible regularly, and conversely, feel better about themselves when they do. This is a relatively modern experience, since before the invention of the printing press in c. 1450 A.D., few people ever read the Bible. They couldn t. Few people had access to the hand-copied Scriptures which were rare and expensive, selling for three-plus years in wages the price of a small house. Additionally, most people could not read. 1 The literacy rate in Medieval Europe is estimated at 3-15%. Education was the primarily the privilege of nobility and clergy. 2 And for almost 1,000 years, personal Bible reading, except for a privileged few, was outlawed by the Catholic church. 3 1. An estimated 3-15% of the population in Medieval Europe could read. For example, in 1517, only 2.6% of the people in Germany could have read Martin Luther s 95 Theses. (Scribner and Dixon, The German Reformation, 2003.) 2. Beginning in the 12th century, English defendants accused of a capital offense could plead the benefit of clergy, transferring their case to a Bishop s court. The proof of clerical status: literacy, demonstrated by reading Psalm 51 out loud before the court. 3. In 860, Pope Nicholas I condemned all who expressed interest in reading the Bible, and reaffirmed its banned public use (Papal Decree). In 1073, Pope Gregory supported and confirmed the ban, and in 1198, Pope Innocent III declared that anybody caught reading the Bible would be stoned to death by soldiers of the Church military (Diderot s Encyclopedia, 1759). In 1229, the Council of Toulouse, passed another Beginnings 7
No access to Bibles, no literacy, no legal permission...for centuries. And yet, Christianity flourished. How did that happen? Knowing God without reading Before Gutenberg s press, the Bible people read was never primarily a text. It was a multi-sensory experience communicated through painted canvas, marble sculpture, stained glass, bronze doors, stirring cantatas, memorable creeds, doctrinal sermons, theological hymns, and soaring architecture. The liturgical calendar including Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time created a rhythm for living in the divine drama. Saints days and holy feasts kept the faithful engaged and alive to a Christian history and hope. Medieval summer drama festivals acted out stories from the Bible in historical sequence. And since the 9th century, a simple catechism (Greek, instruction by word of mouth ) helped illiterate heads of household to train family members in the basics of their Christian faith, forming and transforming lives. Our technology what we mean by reading Our technology is reading. Everyday we sift through massive quantities of data, analyzing it for relevance and importance, then synthsizing it for practical application. We control the process. The moment you opened this book to read, a powerful set of preconditioned dynamics of perception went into operation. You are the victim of a lifelong, educationally enhanced learning mode that established you as the controlling power (reader) who decree strictly prohibiting lay people from having in their possession either the Old or New Testaments; or from translating them into the vulgar tongue. By the 14th Century, possession of a Bible by the laity was a criminal offence and punishable by whipping, confiscation of real and personal property, and burning at the stake. 8 Beginnings
seeks to master a body of information (text) that can be used by you (technique, method, model) to advance your own purpose (in this case, spiritual formation). 4 When say we read the Bible, we typically mean that we analyze and synthesize Biblical information according to our purpose, to solve our problems, or to answer our questions. We master the text. We are in control. This cause-and-effect approach to reading Scripture is relatively modern, and is absent from both the Bible and church history. While reading the Bible for information is necessary, it is not sufficient for spiritual growth. 5 By itself, it can even work against the formation of the Christian soul. 6 While we need to master the text, more importantly, the text master needs to master us.... The informational mode is only the front porch of the role of scripture in spiritual formation. It is the point of entry into the text. But once we have crossed the porch, we must enter into that deeper encounter with the Word that is the formational approach, if we are to experience our false self being shaped by the Word toward wholeness in the image of Christ. 7 Technology of Biblical times hearing Perhaps, surprisingly, the Bible says nothing about the private, devotional reading of itself. 8 This makes sense given the oral culture of the Biblical writers, where only an estimated 1-3% of the population could read. Even fewer had access to a hand-copied 4. Robert Mulholland, Shaped by the Word, (The Upper Room: Nashville, 1985) 21. 5. There are different modes for engaging the Bible, e.g., for familiarity, knowledge, academic study, and formation. While Biblical information is necessary, it does not in and of itself result in spiritual transformation. 6. So, Andrew Murray: Unless we be aware, the Word, which is meant to point us away to God, may actually intervene and hide Him from us. The mind may be occupied and interested and delighted at what it finds, and yet, because this is more head knowledge than anything else, it may bring little good to us. If it does not lead us to wait on God, to glorify Him, to receive His grace and power for sweetening and sanctifying our lives, it becomes a hindrance instead of a help. (The School of Obedience, p. 54) 7. Mulholland, p. 59. 8. The New American Standard Bible contains 70 references in 65 verses to reading, with no instruction regarding the personal, devotional reading of Scripture. Beginnings 9
sacred scroll of the Torah. Instead of reading, access to Scripture was through hearing it read publicly on Sabbath, market and festival days. Thus, the apostle Paul reminds Timothy to continue making Scripture available to all: Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. 9 Whether our technology is listening or reading, what matters is how we internalize and interact with Scripture. Let s explore what the Bible says about how to be alive to God in Scripture. Encountering God through hagah The Hebrew word, hagah 10 in the Old Testament describes how we encounter God and are transformed through Scripture. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall HAGAH on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. 11 ---------- How blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he HAGAHS day and night. 12 ---------- Blessed are You, O LORD; Teach me Your statutes. With my lips I have told of All the ordinances of Your mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, As much as in all riches. I will HAGAH on Your precepts and regard Your ways. I shall delight in Your statutes; I shall not forget Your word. 13 9. I Timothy 4:13. See also, Revelation 1:3. 10. Twenty-four occurrences in the Old Testament. 11. Joshua 1:8 12. Psalm 1:1-2 13. Psalm 119:12-16 Beginnings 10
Hagah has a two-pronged meaning: 14 1. To discuss with oneself. To ruminate, chew on, consider, devise, ponder, muse, growl. 15...the lion which growls (hagah) over his prey his prey. 16 2. To work out the personal meaning by careful thought. To think, study, reflect, imagine, devise. 17 The heart of the righteous studies (hagah) how to answer... 18 Similarly, in the Jewish Qumran community around the time of Christ, hagah meant, in the thought of my heart. Hagah means, To work out the personal meaning by careful thought. People in Biblical times were instructed in how to bring the words of Scripture into their lives, to sit with them for a season, chewing on them like a dog chews on a bone, working out their invitations. We are learning that now. A guided, shared encounter We are not alone as we encounter God in the Bible. The Holy Spirit who authored Scripture through human beings is the same Presence living within Christfollowers. He guides us into what we need to know. 14. Hagah is often translated as, meditate, a confusing term in our culture with a wide range of meanings. The goal of Eastern meditation is to empty the mind and become detached from feeling and thought. Its objective is to realize there is no individual self and that the real self is part of the divine godhead, the ultimate reality. In contrast, hagah means to fill the mind with the Scriptures, reflecting upon their meaning for our lives, paying attention to God s personal, living Presence made real through His invitations, corrections, affirmations, and direction. The goal is to live according to our true identity, as God s beloved, actively partnering with the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus for the sake of others. 15. So, Psalm 1:2; 63:6; 77:12; 143:5. 16. Isaiah 31:4. 17. So, Psalm 2:1; Proverbs 24:2. 18. Proverbs 15:28. Beginnings 11
I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 19 The apostle Paul confirms this. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 20 The road ahead... We will begin learning and practicing being alive to God in Scripture in the second conversation, Architecture, that it might become a lifelong way of being. 19. John 16:12-13. 20. 1 Corinthians 2:12 13. See also Galatians 1:12: For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Beginnings 12