This Lenten season, we will be discussing Roger Ferlo’s, Opening the Bible; discussing how we might read and reflect on God’s Word to inform our Christian lives. We will meet on four occasions, and I will provide a summary of our discussions here so that interested folks who cannot join us will have an opportunity to reflect on these topics at their own convenience. Our discussions are rooted in the traditions of the Episcopal Church, which the reader will need to keep in mind, as there are many traditions and many beliefs regarding reading Holy Scripture.

During our first gathering, we took up the first two chapters of Opening the Bible, (1) “Why Read the Bible?” and, (2) “Preparing to Read.”

“Why Read the Bible?” – in this first chapter, we take a high level view of the practice of reading the Bible. Why take up this practice in the first place? After all, there are many other avenues  to hear and reflect on God’s Word: daily devotionals, hearing Scripture in worship services, reading books from knowledgeable biblical scholars or pastors, and the list goes on. While all these sources will surely provide insight and useful information, access to the Bible itself is really a foundational idea of the Reformation; something people thought was critically important to their relationship with God. And so, the Bible is available to us directly and we can benefit by reading the Bible ourselves. But we need to read thoughtfully, critically, and in the company of others, in addition to private reading. Ferlo’s thoughts here: “Both for the first generation of Anglicans and for Anglicans today, the Bible was not meant to be studied in isolation…Richard Hooker, refuting the Puritans who claimed that the ‘bare reading’ of the Bible would suffice for any Christian, insisted that the book must always be read in context – not just in the context of common worship, but also in the context of received tradition.” (pp.4-5) The Bible is a book, but a very special book of our relationship and history with God. Ferlo writes, “Like all books, the Bible has a history that determines how it should be read. We cannot read into the Bible what was never there. Nor can we simply pick and choose the texts that meet our needs or reinforce our prejudices, wresting passages our of context and turning them into slogans.” (p. 8) Careful, thoughtful, reflective study of the Bible will yield insights to what God is doing in your life, and strengthen your relationship with God and others. A study question from the author: What is your understanding of the words of Scripture: (a) God’s Word, written down, (b) an interpretation of God’s dealings with humanity, (c) a collection of ancient documents that have guided Jewish and Christian thought for centuries of believing? What is the implications of your position for the way you read and live out the words of the Bible?

“Preparing to Read” – The earliest collections of Holy Scripture were found to be contained in several scrolls, likely kept in places of worship almost exclusively. After many, many generations, the practice of copying Scripture to pieces of parchment and collected in folios of writings. Only after the advancement of printing technologies and the steady rise of the number of literate people did the Bible we know today (in book format) come to exist. The book we know today is filled with Scripture that was orally passed down and eventually written over the course of hundreds and thousands of years. Opening the Bible can be an intimidating task, as Ferlo writes, “What keeps people ignorant of the Bible is not an unwillingness to tackle its complexities, but rather one of two assumptions: the Bible is an ancient and forbidding book accessible only to experts; or, it is accessible only to true believers, offering a refuge for people who mistrust the intellect and seek to keep new ideas at bay.” (p. 23) So, what do you really need to “open the Bible” and begin reading, learning, and deepening your relationship with God’s Word? As Ferlo writes, not a whole lot: “You start with a conviction that God speaks to us through the Bible, and a prayerful disposition to listen. And then you bring an open heart, an open mind, a willingness to learn and to make mistakes, a respect for other readers’ views, a tolerance for differences of opinion, and a love of surprises.” (p. 23) If done well, I think Lent is a time of surprises, so here Ferlo is on to something perfectly correct! A study question from the author: Think of a book besides the Bible that has had a shaping influence on your life. How did you come to be acquainted with it? Does it arouse the same feelings in you now as it did when you first read it? How does the kind of experience you have had with such a book compare with the experience you have had with the Bible?