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!

Ferlo begins his discussion of this final chapter with an overview of “what it is like to read.” In our contemporary world, we have grown quite used to the idea that reading is a silent and private affair. A visit to any library or serious place of study will reveal a multitude of signs calling for SILENCE and at least one stern looking staff member ready to enforce the sign. As we read our book in private silence, we are drawn in to the books subject matter, its plot, its characters (unless we are engaged in onerous homework…). However, the silent practice of reading was previously the exception rather than the rule. Ancient documents testify to the idea that “reading” was a public affair, done with voice, not silence. Ferlo mentions a fourth-century story of Augustine encountering Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, reading something of great importance, in utter silence. Augustine is baffled, and writes in his diary: “When he [Ambrose] read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart explored the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still…we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.” Ferlo comments regarding Augustine’s thoughts: “For someone of Augustine’s training and background, Ambrose’s silent reading was a mystery.” A mystery because reading, in general, and the reading of holy Scripture, in particular, was meant to be read aloud. “People of the time regarded the act of reading itself primarily as an oral experience. The reading of a text created community…reading was by its very nature a shared enterprise – a social, religious, and oftentimes political affair…the very word for reading in Hebrew implies both an act of hearing and an act of speech.” (pp. 95-96) And so, to read aloud in a group is to begin the study and the exploration of the Bible…”the act of reading is a beginning, not an end. It opens an entrance into a sacred conversation, and leads to the conversion of a life now spent in [relationship with God]”. (p.100)

Ferlo next spends a bit of time exploring new developments in biblical study and various approaches toward reading the Bible, all resulting from new ways of thinking resulting from the Enlightenment thinking of rational thought and from the outcome of the Protestant Reformation. Most important from this section is the beginnings of the Biblical Critical method of scholarship, historical research and analysis, new developments in Literalism, and the expanding understanding of the Bible as a straightforwardly understood text, able to be digested alone, in silence. Some of these developments gave some personal freedoms and welcomed some to the readership of the Bible that would have otherwise passed, but it also impoverished the communal aspect of Bible study. To read holy Scripture in a spiritual and prayerful way, a person should keep all the tools in mind, but remain always open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in the movements and conclusions made through your reading. He concludes his observations of these many modern developments with a thought toward Anglican Bible study methodology: “As Anglicans, the most fruitful community of Scripture readers we can create must be at the same time detached from and engaged by what we read. As faithful readers of Scripture we must acknowledge the dark places, the inconsistencies, and the downright foreignness of our ancient texts. At the same time we must acknowledge our own inadequacies as readers; our indebtedness to tradition; our need to share what we know with others, and to own up to what we cannot know.” (p.112) Ferlo closes with an admonition to readers of the Bible, to have courage to know that God is with you as you engage the holy Scriptures, to pick up the Bible and read with humility, with passion, with confidence, and with the faith to know that God is active in our engagement with the Bible. “Take up the [Bible] and read. Strive to master the challenging disciplines of faithful reading. You may be solitary, but you are never isolated. And you are never really alone.” (p. 115)