I attended a presentation this week by William & Mary professor Adam Potkay on Milton’s Paradise Lost and its relationship to scripture. A poignant question was asked in the Q and A that followed, but no answer Prof. Potkay could give was satisfactory. My guess is that the questioner had a tightly held understanding of what scripture says and that a satisfactory answer had to mesh with that understanding. It’s a common response in adult Christian education that seems to come from two sources. One is a well established understanding learned as a youth. The other is a later understanding of scripture linked to a sociopolitical conviction. Sometimes the two are compatible; more often they contend with each other. It creates a sort of four part matrix of cognitive dissonance that resists resolution.
In my observation, an adult often needs to relearn how to read scripture in order to move into a deeper, more mature faith. I have nothing new to suggest how that should be done, yet there’s a method of reading scripture I learned years ago. In part it is rabbinic and in part from a decade old lecture by Rowan Willians.
First read a biblical passage to see the words. Then, if necessary, look up definitions of unfamiliar words.
Read it a second time for basic understanding of what the words mean. It helps to have a good study bible with footnotes to explain obscure or controversial phrases of ancient languages hard to replicate in English.
Read the passage a third time to listen to what God may be saying through the words. It’s not the same thing as a “plain meaning of the text.” This method requires a bit of work in order to sit quietly in reflection with an open mind.
Finally, and most difficult, enter the text as both observer and participant in the scene. Join with others present, talk with them, ask questions, listen for answers. I think this the hardest to do because people are afraid of seeing, hearing, doing, or saying the wrong thing if and when they let themselves get too close to the action. God might get angry. Nonsense. Scripture is robust, you are not going to hurt it or put yourself in jeopardy with God. I think most people have had the experience of discovering themselves so deep in a book that they forget they’re reading. They’re just in the story almost as one of the characters.
There’s no risk when it’s just a story, and it’s a wonderful experience. But divinely inspired scripture, the word of God”? Maybe that’s too risky. Get it wrong and go to hell. Get over it. Scripture invites each reader into relationship with God and to explore that relationship in company with the characters in the bible. You may never get it just right, but God in Christ Jesus will always be there to guide you a little farther along the way. The only big mistake is to decide you have it all figured out, and any movement away is in the wrong direction. Staying where you are is the wrong direction.
God’s holy Word may be eternal and unchanging but your ability to understand what God said and what God is speaking is at hand. Now is always changing. The Holy Spirit is ever at work prodding us to go boldly into what is new, unknown and unpredictable. To go with confidence requires trust in God’s presence and love. The poem known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate is a reminder that Jesus is beside us, beneath us, behind us and ahead of us, binding unto ourselves the strong name of the Trinity
And that’s enough for now.