Tag Archives: reading

Across chapter lines

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Many Bible reading plans have people read a certain number of chapters each day. If you were doing that kind of plan, and the dividing line came at the end of John 13, on one day you would read about Jesus’ prediction that Peter would deny him three times. And you would lay your Bible down (or close the window at Biblegateway.com) thinking about Peter’s impending failure.

The next day, you would start reading in John 14 about Jesus going to prepare a place for his followers. And unless you were very disciplined in remembering what you read previously, you wouldn’t connect the story of Peter with the story of many houses.

Or maybe your reading plan includes both chapter 13 and 14 on the same day, but the big white space and the fact that chapter breaks “always” reflect breaks in thought let you separate the stories.

But the more I look at this section of John, where Peter raises the question most on his mind (where are you going) and where Jesus answers Peter’s question (I’m going to get stuff ready for you), the more I see Jesus connecting the two. Peter’s fervent affirmation that he would follow Jesus grew out of fear. If Jesus left, Peter was losing everything. His teacher, his calling, his work, his new name. If Jesus left, he had nothing. No wonder he was so intense.

And Jesus says two things:

1. you are going to deny me.

2. but relax, I’m not staying gone.

Both are answers to Peter and to the rest of the disciples. Both say that there is a difference between how things look at the moment and how things really are. And the connection would be missed if we let the chapters (and the headers) distract us from the story.

Read for the story.

8 ways to read the Bible

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It happened again last week. Someone said, “I know I should spend more time in my Bible.” After scolding him for yelling at himself rather than celebrating the fact that he is spending time with a small group of people talking about the Bible, I realized that lots of people share that same feeling.

I could scold you, too, for thinking that reading the Bible is something you ought to do (rather than thinking it is a way to meet someone). I’ll save that scold. For now, here are some ways to approach reading.

1. Open the book. Read whatever is where your eyes fall on the page. Sometimes, you get surprised by what you see. It can break up routine reading.

2. Turn to Psalms. Read 80-85. If you read 5 psalms every day, you can read the whole book through in a month.

3. Read Proverbs 16. If you read one chapter a day, you can read most or all of the book in a month.

4. Start reading Mark. Wherever you go today, read more. Decide that you will read the whole book in the next two days.  Print out the pages from Biblegateway.com so it looks like a blog post instead of a Bible.

5. Turn to Philemon. Read it out loud. It’s a letter, written by Paul to a friend whose slave had run away and ended up with Paul. Find the emotion that one friend might use in talking to another friend. Pretend that you are one of those narrators in a Ken Burns documentary.

6. Read Hosea. Imagine buying your wife back from a pimp. Really.

7. Decide to memorize Matthew 5-7. You’ve memorized Jabberwocky and the lineup of the 2001 Mets. Why not a famous speech by Jesus?

8. Write a blog translating Bible passages into life. It makes you think. but 300wordsaday.com is taken.

Hearing voices.

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(This is a guest post from my friend Rob Hatch.)

I recognized Paul’s words the other day.  It had never happened to me.  I was preparing for reading at Mass.  I read the first reading from Genesis and the second and then the gospel.  I do this to prepared in case the other lector doesn’t show (which happened on Sunday).  I also do this to have context, to see the thread.  The second reading was from Colossians.  I didn’t know that at first; my iPad obscured the reference when I pinch/zoomed on the text.  I read it and immediately said, “that’s Paul”.  Then I looked at the reference and grinned.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what I recognized then, but in reflection, it was tone, fervent witness, assuming the responsibility of disciple and sharing what Jesus asked of him and them.

I am learning to peel back the “The Word of the Lord” part to understand the disciples as people.  This is different from trying to see Jesus as a person, creating a “friend” perspective of him.  By doing it through the disciples, I learn about the struggle to understand, to follow, to try to get it right, I learn about Jesus through relationship.

When we end the readings with “The Word of the Lord”, we sometimes forget about the person telling the story.  I think something is lost there (at least for me).

I think I recognized Paul because I have been thinking about him as a person.  I read differently because of this.  Instead of trying to understand Jesus by putting together puzzle pieces of each disciples’ perspective, I am trying to enjoy who he was with each person individually and understand through his relationship with them.  It helps me experience my relationship not “as it should be” but “as it is”.

think about it

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“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“I’m gonna think about that.”

“Ever since you mentioned that, I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Remember how we were talking about that situation? I started wondering what would happen if we tried this.”

“I was sitting in that seminar and all of the sudden, something clicked. So I’ve been working through my schedule using the principles, and, well, I’ve made some changes.”

Sound familiar? Those are phrases we use when we’ve taken some words and wrestled with them.

Those are phrases that capture what God meant when he said to Joshua,

Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

We read “meditate” and we think “silence” and we think “empty” and we think “how in the world am I going to sit around all day and do nothing but think about Bible verses?”

But that isn’t what Joshua did.

Right before God says this to Joshua, he says “get ready to cross the Jordan River.” Right after this, Joshua goes to the officers of the people and says, “go tell them to get ready to cross the Jordan River.”

Joshua lived an active life, leading a huge group of people in a major settlement project. He wasn’t sitting silently all day.

However, he was thinking about what he read, what he may have watched Moses write. He was wrestling with what God said and then looking for ways to apply it, to carry it out.

The invitation to us to meditate on God’s words, repeated in Psalm 1 and throughout Psalms, is to think them through, to understand the story, ask what they mean.

Constantly.

—-

For more on reading reflectively, see “The Heart of Lectio Divina“

For more on where to start reading, see “Just dive in.”

made differently well

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I’ve had cause to talk about Psalm 139 twice in the last two days. It’s a psalm that talks about being made well, being known by God. It’s a good psalm for people to remember when they are struggling to keep up.

To keep up with what? With the expectations people have about what a Christian should do.

Here’s an example that is fresh in my heart. There is an expectation that we should spend 15 minutes a day silently reading the Bible. If we are really good, in the course of a year we will read all the way through the Bible.

But what if we have a hard time reading? What if there aren’t any books that we sit and read that much? What if we learn best by having a conversation rather than reading quietly? What if we want to take one paragraph and spend a week taking it apart and putting it together again? What if we want to take a theme and trace it from the end of the book to the beginning?

What if Psalm 139 is true and we are fearfully and wonderfully and uniquely made? What if you don’t learn the way I learn, but you are still created by God?

So, rather than having to read five  chapters a day so that you can finish the whole Bible in a year,  take one set of stories and wrote them as a screenplay, looking at all the camera angles, understanding how Jesus would interact with the disciples and the crowd and the Pharisees.  Take one theme like “people who hollered at God and lived,” and look for every example you can find. Worked your way through a Gospel writing 300 words a day.

There are many ways to read. Find the one you are built for.