I really appreciate this provocative piece from Peter Leithart with “4 Ways to Revolutionize Your Bible Reading.”
Here is a taste of Leithart’s 4 suggestions.
1. Trust the text
“What I really mean is: trust the Author. At bottom, that means believing this book is God’s speech in human language. These words are God’s words. If you don’t believe that, nothing else I say will make much sense.”
2. There are no shortcuts
“Whether reading a poem or a biblical book or the whole Bible, there are no shortcuts. Read, then re-read, then re-re-read, until the whole book goes with you through every verse. Only then will the text come to seem natural.”
3. Find and mimic readers who are better than you are
“Find someone whose reading of the Bible electrifies and delights you, someone who makes your heart burn. Listen. Mimic. As you read, imagine he’s standing at your shoulder pointing to all the things you missed.”
4. Worship at a church with a Bible-saturated liturgy
“Many churches with “Bible” in the name rarely have much Bible in worship. The hymns contain small snatches of Scripture. The pastor reads a few verses for his sermon text, but otherwise little of the Bible is read and heard. By a weird irony, many traditionally liturgical churches are more immersed in Scripture than Bible-believing evangelical ones are.”
There is much to consider here. I encourage you to check it out!
I read the original article referenced, and agreed with the main points. However, the critique of evangelical vs more liturgical traditions is not necessarily warranted. Reading of scriptures in liturgy is no guarantee of congregants being more rooted in scripture than evangelicals who do not use liturgies. Lutherans and Anglicans can be just as ignorant of the Bible in spite of ‘reading’ the weekly liturgy. I know Anglicans who do not believe the Bible to be inerrant, nor do they believe in the atonement of Christ, nor that Christ is the only way to salvation as ‘there many paths to God.’ I also know Lutherans who are quite unlearned in the Scriptures and live seemingly worldly daily existence. Both seem to trust in church membership rather than relationship with Christ as means of salvation.
Reading liturgies can lend to religious ‘rote-ness’ instead of relationship with the living Christ.