Read the Bible

"The practices that acknowledge the authority of Scripture in the church arm it against the greatest danger of a culture that declares itself “post-modern”, the loss of a sense of difference between image and reality. Let us follow the lead given us, then, by the demand that the Bible be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed - in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading." - Oliver O'Donovan

If you haven't read Oliver O'Donovans speech 'The Reading Church: Scriptural Authority in Practice' make sure you do. Given at the end of April 2009 at the launch of his new book, it is a reflection on the Jerusalem Declaration's statement on scripture that: We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all thungs necessary fro salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached. taught and obeyed in its plain and canoical sense, respectful of the church's historic and consensual reading.

What does it look like to be respectful of the church's historic and consensual reading? Anyway, I found this comment sobering:

"Fifty years ago Stephen Neill, in identifying the elements that characterized Anglican Christianity, named as the first of these “the biblical quality by which the whole warp and woof of Anglican life is held together...The Anglican Churches read more of the Bible to the faithful than any other group of Churches. The Bible is put into the hands of the layman; he is encouraged to read it, to ponder it, to fashion his life according to it.” That these words would be wholly impossible to write today ought to sober us."