{"id":3401,"date":"2019-02-25T20:03:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T20:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wpmu.azurewebsites.net\/nlt\/?p=3401"},"modified":"2021-12-08T09:22:05","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T09:22:05","slug":"reading-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/2019\/02\/25\/reading-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Together"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Glenn Paauw, Institute for Bible Reading<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading the Bible well doesn\u2019t happen automatically. There\nare steps we must take to ensure we\u2019re receiving the Bible on its own terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We read a well-translated Bible, and we read it\nholistically. We read complete literary units. If at all possible, we read in a\nnice, clean, elegant Reader\u2019s Bible. They\u2019re built to make reading easier and\nbetter, so no surprise there. But wait. Who is reading? We<\/em> are. We<\/em> are reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Really? We? Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Because, first, research shows that most of us are not\nreally reading the Bible very much. And second, when we do read it, it\u2019s not\nreally we<\/em> who are reading. It\u2019s more\nlike me<\/em> or you<\/em>. In other words, those who are<\/em>\ndoing something with the Bible are overwhelmingly doing it alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is, we\u2019ve largely privatized our experiences with\nthe Bible. We hold up the \u201cdaily quiet time\u201d as the center of what we\u2019re\nsupposed to do with the Bible. We\u2019ve created a culture in which an individual Bible\nexperience is at the heart of what a serious Bible reader does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alone with a Bible, I have my private time with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, none of this is a problem as far as it goes. It\u2019s\ngreat to read your Bible alone. Lots of very good things can and do happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not all the good things that God intended. Two\nhistorical points are really important here. First, when the Scriptures were\nfirst experienced by God\u2019s people, they were always experienced in community.\nThere were very few copies, so a village in ancient Israel or one of the\nearliest Christian gatherings would at most have a copy of some of the books\nthat now make up the Bible. As such, these Bible portions would be read aloud\nfor the community, and people would simply listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, they could listen well and remember what they heard\nbecause they lived in an oral culture, a far cry from our context, in which\nwritten materials are so readily available. The historical evidence also shows\nthat these listening experiences were interactive, not merely one-way\ncommunication. Everyone (including the leaders) was processing the sacred words\ntogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, and just as importantly, the original audience\nknew that the Bible itself was a community-formation book, not a private\nme-and-God book. The word you<\/em> in the\nBible is most often a plural word, not singular. God\u2019s Word is addressed to the\ngathered people of God and is intended to speak to them in their corporate beliefs\nand actions. As a group, they were being invited to get caught up in God\u2019s\ngreat restoration movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019ve moved away from this ancient, oral, community-based\nculture in lots of ways. In fact, it is worth noting that the Bible first\nbecame widely available to individuals in their own language right at the same time\nthat modern individualism was growing as a cultural force. We live and move and\nhave our being in this individualism. It is the air we breathe. Without even\nthinking about it, we think and act in independent, self-oriented ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for us, recovering a deep, transformative engagement with\nthe Scriptures has to include rediscovering ways of experiencing the Bible\ntogether. And this means more than doing a Bible study together. We must back\nup a step and find new ways of simply reading the Bible together, listening to\nit being read and letting the words wash over us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we must craft new ways of interacting openly and\nhonestly with what we\u2019ve read or heard. We must learn the humility to speak our\nown views respectfully and well, and then listen closely and seriously to what\nothers have to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This communal engagement will look more like a book club\nthan a traditional Bible study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we need to think about the communal implications of\na passage, not just the personal impact for ourselves as isolated individuals.\nOur Bible reading must explicitly raise community-based questions. What kind of\ncommunity will embody this teaching or instruction? How can we become that kind\nof community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing community-based engagement back to our Bible reading won\u2019t happen unless we are intentional about making it happen. The Institute for Bible Reading has created a whole-church-based Bible reading program called Immerse<\/a><\/em> precisely for this reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t see, hear, experience, or know enough to experience\nthe Bible sola me<\/em>. We are too small to\ntry to read this grand story only by ourselves. Together, we are the people of\nGod\u2019s new creation, and we need each other\u2014even in our Bible reading,\nunderstanding, and, yes, living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learn more about Immerse: The Bible Reading Experience<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Read more from Glenn on how to receive the Bible on its own terms.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Glenn Paauw, Institute for Bible Reading Reading the Bible well doesn\u2019t happen automatically. There are steps we must take to ensure we\u2019re receiving the Bible on its own terms. We read a well-translated Bible, and we read it holistically. We read complete literary units. If at all possible, we read in a nice, clean, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,15,33,44,45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5825,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3401\/revisions\/5825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}