“Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?”
When I was watching the movie Luther a few months back, I was jarred by one scene in particular:
-Have you ever read the New Testament, Martin?
-No, Father.
-Not many have, but in Wittenberg you will.
-Wittenberg?
-A doctorate in theology.
-You’re sending me away to study?
-I’m sending you to the source…the Scriptures.
Christ Himself.
What caught my attention is the fact that a priest would not have READ the New Testament. Since people started keeping up with such things, about 6 billion Bibles have been sold. That’s more than half of the current world population, so even trying to imagine a time when a priest would not have actually read the New Testament is nearly impossible.
We have many different versions, translations, and perversions of the Bible to choose from. If you haven’t read the New Testament by now, it’s because you haven’t chosen to, not because you haven’t had the opportunity.
But the church in Martin Luther’s day wasn’t interested in having everyone read the New Testament, or the Original Testament either. They could listen to it, be taught from it, and even carry the church’s copy in to worship, but it wasn’t something to be handed around and put into more popular formats.
Maybe the church was too protective, and Luther (as well as others such as the Waldensians) did the church a great service by helping put the Bible in our hands. The church, however has not been careful enough to instruct us in reading the Bible.
Now you can pick up a study edition, a for teens edition, even a YOU edition and jump right in. The iBible video on Youtube is a parody, but it’s not as effective considering how close it is to the reality of what’s available.
The idea that the Bible belongs to you because you purchased it in a store is dangerous. I heard a teen testify to literally turning through the Bible and opening it to a random page when needing advice on a decision. She admitted that she was confused by the passage she flipped to. Of course she was. No one had taught her to read scripture. No one had informed her that she didn’t own the word of God, that if used improperly, the Bible could end up being just another book, or worse, a means for our own self-gratification.
So how do we learn to read scripture? I teach an adult Sunday school class, and we’ve spent time talking about it, and I do think small group studies are necessary, but worship is the best place to learn. Scripture is the language of worship. We listen together. We pray that the words will do their work, that the pastor will speak truth, that the Spirit will move us. We sing scripture, we pray scripture, we are enculturated by it. Thanks be to God that we can receive such a gift.
