Our final study of Roger Ferlo’s book, Opening the Bible, examines the book’s final chapter, “Reading the Bible, Reading Scripture.” This final chapter puts together all the “reading tools” the previous five chapters have explained in detail, and provides some insightful guidance about the practice of reading holy Scripture. As you will discover below, the practice of reading the Bible for spiritual growth is in some ways not too different than reading a book, but in many, many ways is a world apart from reading any book or piece of literature!

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As we continue to make our way through Roger Ferlo’s book, Opening the Bible, our third gathering took up the topics of two chapters: (Ch. 4) “Comparing Translations,” and (Ch. 5) “Interpreting the Explanatory Notes.” Again, perhaps a bit “technical” in its subject matter, but understanding the process of translation from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to our native languages, with some of the complexity and the “loss of translation” involved in the process, will help the reader to appreciate the original text and be open-minded to a few different meanings of the original author’s “hearing” from their prayerful inspiration. Continue reading →