During my formative years as a Christian I was encouraged by almost every Christian who offered me guidance to read the Bible. From the very beginning of my Christian journey this basic of spiritual growth was entrenched into my thinking and discipline. It was always explained to me that one of the basic means through which God talks to us is through Scripture.
I was also encouraged by ministers and Christian leaders to study Scripture. Personally, I did not really understand what was meant by this, but knew that I had somehow to undertake the study of various books of Scripture so as to understand the background of the books. Ministers and Local Preachers (Lay Preachers) and even Fellowship Group Leaders recommend basic books on Scripture and Commentaries and I read.
This study was taken a step further when I felt the call to become a Local Preacher and had to study books on the Bible and was required to develop my understanding of the history of the Old and New Testaments and exegetical skills to the point where I could be examined on my ability to adequately exegete set passages of the Old Testament and New Testament.
This process of studying various books of Scripture was taken even a step further when I responded to the call to become a Full Time Methodist Minister. I had to undertake set church studies on the Old and New Testament and on my exegetical abilities. What really developed a passion for the Study of Scripture within me was my University studies. I took a basic course on an overview of Scripture and so enjoyed the Old Testament studies that I majored in them. I studied for my degree part time through UNISA (University of Southern Africa) and was incredibly fortunate in that I studied under such amazing Afrikaans Old Testament scholars as Ferdinand Deist, Wil Prinsloo, H Bosman, J Loader, Willem Vorster, Isak du Plessis and Jurie le Roux. It was these scholars whose passion for the Old Testament instilled within me a passion for studying and understanding the Old Testaments.
I started buying the commentaries these scholars referred to and started studying Scripture from Genesis. While my passion was for the Old Testament, I never neglected my New Testament. However, time spent on studying the New Testament never came close to that I spent on the Old Testaments. As my studies deepened so I started discovering other amazing Old Testament scholars who influenced deeply my reading of Scripture. Some of these scholars were influenced by both Liberation and Black theology and their application of a sociological hermeneutical methods to the reading of the Old Testament really opened up a new realisation of the study of Scripture for me. South African scholars like Gerald West really gave me new insight and passion for the hermeneutics behind the reading of Scripture. The one scholar who really inflamed my passion for the Old Testament was the American, Walter Brueggemann. I really cannot explain how profoundly he infused my reading of the Old Testament. He literally revolutionised my personal reading of Scripture and took my historical and somewhat academic understanding of the Old Testament and enabled me to so apply them to my context that they rekindled my faith and hope.
In all of this, with the exception of the influence of Walter Brueggemann and Eugene Peterson (both of whom spoke to my mind and heart and spirit), my study of Scripture was very academic and theoretical. It had a very strong historical context and invariably spoke to me out of this.
I was very aware that Scripture needs to talk to a person. I knew it was God’s spoken word to us. Just as God spoke to the patriarchs and Moses and the Prophets, I knew that Scripture was the record of God’s spoken word to us. I also knew that it was timeless and as such was also God’s spoken word to each one of us in every generation. But, as great as my passion for Scripture was, the reading of Scripture was always a cerebral act for me. I knew that it was supposed to talk to my heart and soul as well as my mind. There were times when Scripture did speak to my heart and soul. But it did not happen on a regular enough basis as to be the basis of my spiritual growth.
It was almost by accident that I discovered a way to read Scripture that transcended by very cerebral nature and my deeply entrenched habit of studying it in an academic sense. I was looking at early monasticism and came across the ancient monastic practice practise of “Lectio Divina.” “Lectio Divino” literally translates “Divine Reading.” I ignored what I had picked up on, but after a few years and the reading of such authors as Eugene Peterson and Ricard Foster, I decided that it was an approach worth looking into. I ran a course at the church of which I was resident minister on it. Even then the penny did not really drop. From researching “Lectio Divina” and giving a course on it I knew that the idea was to read Scripture slowly and to try and enter into it.
I cannot tell how or where the switch was finally switched on for me. But one day I decided to try this ancient monastic approach to the reading of Scripture. I took Luke’s Gospel and decided to try and read the whole of it slowly. Something literally changed within me. I took the first chapter of Luke and started by reading the first delineated section. It was literally too long and too full to really digest so I gave myself a week to just work through it. As the week progressed I started breaking the section into smaller sections taking a few days to work through each section. Another amazing thing happened – as I started reading through the shorter section I discovered that the first thing that crossed my mind as I reflected on the passage was either what I had previously thought of the passage, or studied about it or what I had heard others preach or teach about it. But after two or three days of reading the same section these previous thoughts seemed to fade away, and new understandings started reaching out from the passage to me. And then – I started hearing God voice to me in the passage. Just simply reading the passage and not trying to study it or critically understand it, somehow opened up within me the space for a new dynamic out of Scripture to touch me. Moving beyond my previous thinking and learning enabled me read the passage anew and allow the Spirit of God within the Word of God to speak to my spirit in a way I had never experienced on a regular basis before. Quite often I would be reading a passage, and without thinking or contemplating on the words I had read, something would well up within me, creating tears or spontaneous praise and praying in tongues.
I realised that I had discovered what the monastics had discovered a least a thousand years ago – I had discovered how to create the space and allow God to speak to me through the reading of Scripture. I still am passionate about the solid study of Scripture and recommend it to all. But it is no longer the foundation of my devotional life and my time listening to God. The reading of Scripture in the way that allows God to talk to me and which allows me the space to hear him is a new foundation in my devotional life.
philip howarth 