Lent #7: Does the Bible Hinder Your Spiritual Growth?

As usual, today's scripture readings from the Daily Readings were terrific. The Psalms, the Old Testament reading, the New Testment reading, and the Gospel...all of them...were excellent.

So, why am I asking a crazy question about whether the Bible hinders our spiritual growth? Am I being facetious? Trying to start an argument? Offend?

No to all of those. What I am trying to do is create questions that challenge...that force me...and possibly you, to look at things from a different angle...a new perspective.

While writing these Lenten blogs, I am also continuing to read Eat This Book, by Eugene Peterson, and came upon a chapter today that stirred me up. Did you know, by chance, that Plato, who died 350 years before Christ, predicted that writing would ultimately debilitate our ability to remember things? Back then of course, information was shared orally. There were no books like we know them today (hardback or Kindle!)...no "Bibles."

Eugene Peterson makes the insightful point that oral communication, by its very nature, is more personal, more dynamic, more...uncontrolled. If you and I are having a conversation, or I'm reading something aloud to you, it's an entirely different experience than reading words on the page.

And this, friends, is the kind of experience with scripture that Jesus had. Granted, the Hebrew scriptures were written on scrolls...but the experience of "reading" scripture was largely oral. Rabbis and others read the scriptures aloud, in the community of other believers. It was read aloud, discussed...debated...and understood...in an entirely different way than what we experience today. And yes, it was memorized.

When I was a kid growing up in the Baptist church, we were encouraged to memorize scripture. I can't remember the last time I was in a group of believers who talked about memorizing scripture, or much of anything. We don't even memorize each other's phone numbers any more, because they're loaded into our cell phone directories. Plato was right, wasn't he?

But why does this matter much, or at all? Do you, or should you, memorize scripture simply to say you did? To impress someone? Or...is it possible that the memorization of scripture has the power to get inside of you in a way that can be life changing? Could our reliance on reading actually be a stumbling block to our spiritual formation? I think maybe it could.

Let me hasten to close with this last thing...if you're not doing anything with scripture...reading or otherwise...I would encourage you to read it. If you're already reading the scripture and want to go deeper...I'd suggest maybe a return to memorization could be helpful...and reading it aloud (alone or in community with others) can likewise be a powerful way to bring the text alive, and to hear God's word in a whole new way.