Perhaps one of the most memorable verses in the New
Testament comes from the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel, “ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.” (“In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John
1:1) It was not by accident that St. John used, as the primary vehicle for
communicating God’s person and presence, the term “λόγος” – Word.
A word is a means of communication. It is customarily spoken. It is
itself a revelation of the One who speaks it. It requires seeing and hearing
and, to distill its full meaning, it requires “rumination,” or pondering in the
heart. Sacred Scripture is the living compendium of God’s Word, replete with
stories, lessons, instructions, directions, and prophetic preaching designed to
be seen, heard, and brought deep into the heart. In his book Bread for
Life: Reading the Bible, Fr. Theodore Stylianopoulos, Professor of
New Testament at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, writes, “The
Church does not give us Holy Scripture as a book to study and interpret on our
own. Rather, it opens to us the door to that beauty to which we are called by
the Bridegroom Himself.”
Sacred Scripture is an encounter. It is a meeting between the human
person and the very author of humanity itself. It is an extension of the
salvific work done in Jesus Christ. A “living” testimony, Scripture is the
presence of the Holy Spirit seeking us out to renew us and recreate us to live
life in the post-modern world where, alas, words grow increasingly cheap,
meaningless, and void of any power to inspire. If Sacred Scripture is so
wondrous, then why do so few Orthodox Christians fail to read the Word of God
every day?
A Pew Research Study on Religion and Public Life, indicates that nearly
70 percent of Orthodox Christians seldom or never pick up the Scripture and
read it. 70 percent! I suspect that many, if not most reading these words find
yourselves in that group. More shocking is the fact that 43 percent of Orthodox
Christians believe Sacred Scripture is not the Word of God. These alarming
survey results stand in stark contrast to the words of St. John Chrysostom. He
tells his listeners “to persevere continually in reading the Divine Scriptures,
because it is not possible, not possible for anyone to be saved without
continually taking advantage of spiritually reading the Scriptures.”
Saint Jerome confirms Chrysostom’s counsel when he writes that
“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ Himself!” For that reason, we
need an Orthodox renaissance of Scripture reading. For the sake of our own
holiness, spiritual life and desired closeness to Jesus, we need to read the
Word, to reflect on the Word, and to live the Word – every day! How can we do
that? Because of the limited amount of space, I suggest we begin by
understanding how Sacred Scripture is read and by knowing four key qualities of
reading the Word of God.
How is Sacred Scripture Read?
First, there is the reading of Scripture that is principally concerned
with whether or not an event actually historically (factually) happened. For
this method, historical authenticity means everything. It is often referred to
as the “literal” way and is built on the premise that everything in Scripture
literally happened as described. Secondly, there is the moral way of reading
Scripture which seeks to find the moral reality, the values/ethics being taught
in every passage. This way seeks out the various principles for Christian
conduct, tantamount to a handbook of values. Finally, there is the spiritual way
of reading Scripture. This method puts far less significance on the historical
reality than the literal method and less emphasis on the purely moral reading.
A spiritual reading means discerning what the passage says about God,
His world, and His work in the world – and how it applies to my life. This last
method is used by Orthodox scholars as it was by the Fathers of the Church who
were the first to engage in the formal study and development of Sacred
Scripture. Biblical scholar Fr. Joseph Fitzmeyer notes that, “Our culture is
obsessed with literal truth. Yet Sacred Scripture dealt in larger categories
that literal truth. The New Testament, in particular, uses symbolic/spiritual
language. Rarely do we decide a parable’s worth by whether or not it
historically happened, in real time and space.”
Sacred Scripture tells us the story of how the kingdom of Light is
expelling the darkness of human sin and death, as the Good News of Christ is
preached and lived. The entire Bible is actually telling the “spiritual”
reality behind what we perceive with our senses. The Orthodox way of reading
Scripture is actually more faithful to reality, not as we see it, but as God
sees it. Reading Scripture is an expression of what the Austrian psychiatrist
Viktor Frankl said was, “man’s search for meaning”—a school of psychiatry he
named “logotherapy”.
What are the Four Key Qualities of
Reading Sacred Scripture?
Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia answers that
question in the following way, “We believe that the Scriptures constitute a
coherent whole. They are at once divinely inspired and humanly expressed. They
bear authoritative witness to God’s revelation of Himself – in creation, in the
Incarnation of the Word, and the entire history of salvation. As such they
express the word of God in human language.”
Because of this, when we pick up Sacred Scripture to read it, we
approach it with four qualities. Firstly, our reading
should be obedient. We read Scripture like no other reading we may
do. It is inspired of God, contains his voice and authoritative witness, and
requires our obedience (openness, submission). In short, we must be receptive
to the message God is communicating to us in our reading. Not a novel, not a
biography, not a history text, Scripture is “Word-for-Meaning” in our life and
we use our God-given reason to plumb its depths.
Secondly, as
Orthodox Christians, we should receive and interpret Scripture through the
Church and in the Church. The Church tells us what is Scripture
and how it is understood. The Church defined what books were to be in
Scripture, known as The Canon. In Acts we see the Apostle Philip encountering
an Ethiopian reading the Old Testament. Philip asks, “Do you understand what
you are reading?” The Ethiopian answers, “How can I, unless some man should
guide me?” (Acts 8:30-31) Though we read the Scripture personally, it
represents the mind of the Church and is “the Book of the Church.” For this
reason it is precious to our faith.
Thirdly, our
reading of the Bible should be Christ-centered. From start
to finish, the Bible is the story of God’s persistent love reaching out and
into man, ultimately through the Word-made-flesh, Jesus Christ. Analytical
approaches break out the Scriptures into various sources which can harm the
inner integrity of the book as a whole. We Orthodox prefer, instead, a
synthetic approach, reading the Scriptures as an integrated whole with Christ
as the bond of union. As Fr. Alexander Schmemann famously wrote, “A Biblical
Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, on every page of Scripture, finds
Christ everywhere.”
Lastly, our
reading of Sacred Scripture ought to be personal. St. Mark the
Monk, an early ascetic writer, relates, “He who is humble in his thought and
engaged in spiritual work, when he reads the Holy Scriptures, will apply
everything to himself and not to his neighbor.”
Scripture does not just ask “What does it mean?” but “What does it mean for me?” Where is my story within the larger narrative of
salvation history? Where is God encountering me, reaching out to me, correcting me, teaching me? This is the
point of all Scripture reading, both private and liturgical: to discover
ourselves as part of salvation history, part of the reason why Jesus came, part
of the hand of God’s mercy reaching into our lives to heal us and make us
whole. There is life and hope in the pages of Holy Writ, there for us to
discover.
One day, a still small voice whispered to St. Augustine as he sat in his
garden. “Tolle, lege!” – “Take up, and read!” The incorrigible Augustine, who
spent his life running from God, took up the Sacred Scripture, by chance
flipped it open to the Epistle to the Romans, and it literally changed his life
forever! That is God’s promise to each one of us – if we, too, take up and read.
By Rev. Fr. Dimitrios J.
Antokas
Source: http://myocn.net/take-up-and-read/
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