Stepping Through Scripture
What is it like for you when you read Scripture? Even before we open its pages, we might struggle with the impulse to read at all. Reading the Bible feels like a lifeless duty, a pious chore. We don’t know where to begin, or if we even want to begin at all.
But at the same time, we’ve been taught that reading the Bible is what we’re supposed to do, even if we don’t know why. We jump in, only to find that our ambition exceeds our capacity. Not knowing what we’re looking for or why we’re reading in the first place, we give up altogether. It turns out that shame and self-condemnation have never been good motives for healthy habits.
For those who persist with reading, it is overwhelming to know the best way to read. Social media influencers recommend schedules and charts to maximize our time and spiritual efficiency. Other guides advocate for long, uninterrupted times of study with commentaries strewn across the table. Still others recommend reading shorter sections over and over, or reading with memorization as the goal.
The many diverse ways to read Scripture are good, and I enthusiastically commend them. However, each way of reading is compelled by an impulse. And it’s healthy and good to examine the impulses that uphold our habits, to help us determine the health of those habits. The way we understand why we read these words will help us read them for their intended purpose: to help us grow up into the fullness of God.
As with so many of our habits, we can come to the Bible with the impulses towards mastery and achievement as our motivation. We want to be literate and informed about our faith, and demonstrate competence to ourselves and others. And we want to feel good about our habits, trusting that with enough of the right inputs we’ll receive the spiritual goods we want.
However, the impulses towards mastery and achievement bypass the first gift of Scripture, and the impulse that actually nurtures us: communion.
In order to read Scripture formatively, we must learn how to read with the impulse towards communion rather than the impulses for mastery or achievement. When we move away from these consumptive readings, we read the Bible according to what it is: a doorway and an altar. In these pages, we step into a world over which the Holy Spirit hovers. With these very human stories and very human words, the Holy Spirit leads us to encounter the subject of all Scripture: Jesus.
Through this doorway and at this altar, a formative work happens. We not only read; we are written. By encountering Jesus through the words the Spirit animates, we hear the new creation, world-making words of God addressing us. The words on the page do more than tell us old stories; they turn us into new ones. The Holy Spirit broods over these words, bringing them into our hearts and warming them until eternal life begins to hatch.
At the end of his life, Jesus said that he had many more things he longed to say but could not yet say. (John 16:12) Through the formative work of the Spirit on the altar of Scripture, our hearts and our lives become the tablets on which Jesus says everything he wanted to say. Through the Spirit and the Scriptures, we are turned into the living words of Jesus—everything he longed to say, he will.
With this awareness that Scripture is a gift to us for formative communion, we are free to read large sections (and we should!) and small snippets (and we should!) In all of our reading, communion is the goal. And not matter the length, there are postures we can adopt to move away from mastery and achievement and towards loving communion. Here are four:
1. Intend to read lots leisurely with a willingness to stop
When we read for communion, we are never in a rush even if we don’t have much time. We are free to read at a pace that our minds and hearts can handle, which varies. Sometimes we have the energy to read with great attention for long periods of time. Other times, not. But if our impulse is for communion rather than mastery, then the quality of our time will always be more important than the quantity. And unsurprisingly, we will begin to long for more quality time.
Without being too concerned with how much you read, settle into a space where you feel the freedom to read as much as you can, with a willingness to stop when you’ve had your fill or you need to sit with what you’ve read.
2. Read with attentive presence, as you would give a trusted friend
Reading Scripture is always a communal activity, even when you are alone. When you step through the doorway of Scripture, you are companioned by the Spirit and you are led to encounter Christ, the subject of all Scripture. Because your reading is always a meeting, it is worth checking in with the quality of your presence. When we read, we should lean forward with expectation. As we would with a good friend, our hearts and mind should hold a posture of attentive reception. We practice active and reflective listening to the one who addresses us with words of wisdom and love.
3. Listen with your heart while you think with your mind
When we are with someone, we try to offer the best of our hearts and our minds. But sometimes in our Bible reading, we might read only with our minds–reinforcing the impulses towards mastery or achievement. Instead, we want our desire to fuel the seeking of our minds, and the discoveries of our minds to gently form our hearts. Scripture invites us to bring the best of ourselves to its altar where, like Jacob, we wrestle with God. We do not read passively, but actively—weighing, considering, examining, reflecting, and even arguing. And this active engagement with what we read shows us more of ourselves: it can indicate what we desire and why we want it, allowing us to offer ourselves freely and more fully.
4. Hold and nurture the gifts you are given, no matter how small
The God revealed to us in Jesus is a God who loves rewarding those who seek and answering those who ask. We should expect that each time we come to the altar or Scripture to meet Jesus, seeking to know and love him, we will be helped. For our part, we must learn what gifts God gives us and how to hold them well. Perhaps it is something that strikes our imagination: stories and sentences, words and images. Sometimes something lifts or pierces our heart and we don’t know why. Or sometimes the gift is an increasing desire to want to know more which feels just like confusion or lack. No matter what, hold what lights up within you. Whether it is clear or murky, whether it is loud or quiet, whether it is bright or dim, cup it in your hands and offer it to the Spirit within you, that it might help you grow even in hidden, quiet ways.
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