Story Telling: An Exercise

"Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching."

This will require at least 8 people. From then you you will need multiples of 4.

Number people off 1, 2, 3, 4. Then break up Mark 1.1-34 amongst the four groups this way:

1. Mark 1.1-8
2. Mark 1.9-15
3. Mark 1.16-28
4. Mark 29-34

Each person will need a pen and an A4 piece of paper - divide the paper into eight even boxes. Then each group needs to draw their section of Mark 1 (story board style) in no more than the eight boxes. Once you've done this, start telling your group's part of Mark 1 within the group (using your pictures if needed). Do this a couple of times, helping each other tell the story that is:

• clear (i.e. finding more suitable words/phrases for words/phrases the average person in your culture wouldn't understand; summarise names and places if needed, etc.)
• accurate (you can't guess the meaning to embellish the story)
• interesting (make use of body language, etc.)

OK, you're no ready to tell the story without looking at your pictures or your bible. Swap the groups around so that there is now someone from groups 1, 2, 3 and 4 in each group. Go ahead and tell the story to each other with pausing or stopping.

_________
How did you feel about hearing the bible this way? According to one set of figures, two thirds of the world are aural learners. Is this going to be an effective way to teach them the Bible? There are a basic set of of discussion questions you can use with this method (which are discussed in pairs before being shared with the whole), e.g. What did you like about the story/first impressions from the story? What questions does the story raise for you? What does the story tell us about God? What does the story tell us about humans? What are you going to change next week because of this story?

h/t To the SMBC graduate (who I can't name for security reasons) who taught this method of Bible teaching at staff equip yesterday.

NT Historicity Readings

Here are the books I'm recommending in my AnCon seminar (Ancon, if you're interested, currently has over 630 registrations). Are there books any that you would add, or subtract?

Short and easy to give away
Andrew Errington, Can We Trust What the Gospels say about Jesus? Matthias Media, Sydney, 2009. Andrew has a MA in early Christian and Jewish Studies and is a former EU president.

Murray Smith, Jesus: All About Life, The Bible Society, Sydney, 2009. Murray is currently completing a PhD on Jesus and Early Christianity. He’s also a former EU president. Reviewed here and here.


If you want to know more
Paul Barnett, Is the New Testament History?, revised edition, Aquila Press, Sydney, 2003.

John Dickson, The Christ Files: How historians know what they know about Jesus, Blue Bottle Books, Sydney, 2006.

John Dickson, Jesus: A Short Life, Lion Books, Oxford, 2008.

John Dickson, A Spectator’s Guide to Jesus, Blue Bottle Books, Sydney, 2005.

John Dickson, Life of Jesus course guidebook, Centre for Public Christianity, Sydney, 2009.

Audio
John Dickson, Jesus: Reconsider? SUEU re:Jesus festival 2008, www.sueu.org.au/resources/eu_media/, accessed 17 June 2010.

Chris Forbers, Does the Historical Jesus Have a Leg to Stand On? SUEU Think Weeks 2006, www.sueu.org.au/resources/eu_media/, accessed 17 June 2010.

More serious books
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Erdmans, Grand Rapids, 2008.

Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, second edition, IVP, Leicester, 2008.

The Problem With Bible Reading II

A Question of Authority

Coincidentally after my previous post which quoted John Blanchard on the power of public Bible reading, Anglican Bishop Rob Forsyth has also written on this issue: The Marginalisation of Scripture. Rob quotes Oliver O'Donovan's lecture in April (mentioned on hebel here) to describe the place of scripture within our churches, and particularly how it has been sidelined in recent years. Rob argues that: "It can be easily be overwhelmed by the other elements: the music, the singing or, even more likely in our culture, the preaching."

Several years ago I heard a sermon that said that the most important of church is hearing the bible read out loud. How can the public reading of the Bible be central to our church gatherings? According to O'Donovan and his friend and contemporary Tom Wright, it comes down to authority. O'Donovan's account on this authority is superb. According to Wright:

"...[I]n public worship where the reading of scripture is given its proper place, the authority of God places a direct challenge to the authority of the powers, not least those who use the media, in shaping the mind and life of the community. But the primary purpose of the readings is to be itself an act of worship, celebrating God's story, power and wisdom and, above all, God's son. That is the kind of worship through which the church is renewed in God's image, and so transformed and directed in it's mission. Scripture is the key means through which the living God directs and strengthens his people in and for that work. That, I have argued throughout this book [Scripture and the Authority of God], is what the the shorthand phrase 'the authority of scripture' is really all about.

Indeed, what is done in the classic offices of Morning and Evening Prayer by means of listening to one reading from each Testament, is to tell the entire story of Old and New Testaments, glimpsing the broad landscape of the scriptural narrative through the two tiny windows of short readings. To truncate this to one lesson, or to a short reading simply as a prelude to the sermon (and perhaps accompanied with half an hour or more of 'worship songs'), is already to damage or deconstruct this event, and potentially to reduce the power and meaning of scripture, within this context , simply to the giving of information, instruction or exhortation. Equally, to have a reading that lasts about 90 seconds, flanked by canticles that last five or ten minutes (the practice in some 'cathedral-style' worship), conveys the same impression as a magnificent sparkling crystal glass with a tiny drop of wine in it. The glass is important, but the wine is what really matters." - NT Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God.

Or as O'Donovan argues:

"It is simply that without a proper value assigned to the corporate exercise of public reading of Scripture, private reading must look like an eccentric hobby. No collective spiritual exercise, no sacrament, no act of praise or prayer is so primary to the catholic identity of the church gathered as the reading and recitation of Scripture. It is the nuclear core. When Paul instructed his letters to be passed from church to church and read, it was the badge of the local church’s catholic identity. This is not to devalue preaching, praise, prayer, let alone sacramental act; these all find their authorisation in reading." - Oliver O'Donovan, The Reading Church: Scriptural Authority in Practice.

The reading of the bible at church is a means through which God speaks to his gathered people. Not only is it meant to be a transformative and profound moment, is it an act of worship by Christians to our God. Which is why we should strive to do it well. Not because we are professionals, but because we value excellence in our ministry, because we believe that it honours God and inspires people. I'll be blogging on this later in the week...

The Problem With...Bible Reading

An Excursus

I've been blogging about the problem with preaching. In my Australia evangelical context, I think this is a reaction to i. the polished "professionalism" of pentecostal churches; and ii. the sacramentalism of Roman Catholicism. And so in our preaching we've opted for something that is amateurish compared to the tele-prompted, "Britney microphone" kitted charismatic preacher.

This is also systematic of our church services. And nowhere is this more true than in the Bible readings at church. It can often feel like the first time the reader has looked over the text is when they're standing at the lectern doing the reading.

I want to share with you something I read when I first started leading church services etc. It inspired me, and hopefully it will inspire you too.

"There are times when I have felt that the Bible was being read with less preparation than the notices - and with considerably less understanding. I hesitate to use the following illustrations because of my part in it, but I do so a reminder to my own heart of the seriousness of the issue. A year or two after my conversion I was appointed as a Lay Reader in the Church of England , to Holy Trinity, Guernsey. There were two other, more senior Lay readers on the staff, with the result that on most Sundays the responsibilities could be evenly shared out. As it happened, the Vicar almost always asked me to read the Lessons, following a Lectionary which listed the passages appointed to be read each Sunday of the year. My wife and I lived in a small flat at the time, but I can vividly remember my Sunday morning routine. Immediately after breakfast I would go to the bedroom, lock the door, and begin to prepare reading the Lesson that morning. After a word of prayer I would look up the Lesson in the Lectionary, and read it carefully in the Authorized Version, which we were using in the church. Then I would read it through in every other version I had in my possession, in order to get thoroughly familiar with the whole drift and sense of the passage. Next I would turn to the commentaries. I did not have many in those days, but those I had I used. I would pay particular attention to word meanings and doctrinal implications. When I had finished studying every passage in detail, I would go to the mantelpiece, which was roughly the same height as the lectern in the church, and prop up the largest version of the Authorized Version I possessed. Having done that, I would walk very slowly up to it from the the other side of the room, and begin to speak, aloud: 'Here beginneth the first verse of the tenth chapter of he gospel according to St. John' (or whatever according the passage was). Then I would begin to read aloud the portion appointed. If I made so much as a slip of the tongue, a single mispronunciation, I would stop, walk back across the room, and start again, until I had read the whole passage word perfect, perhaps two or three times. My wife would tell you that there were times when I emerged from the bedroom with that day's clean shirt stained with perspiration drawn from the effort of preparing one Lesson to read in the church. Does that sounds like carrying things too far? Then let me add this: I was told that there were times when after the reading of the Lesson people wanted to leave the service there and then and go quietly home to think over the implications of what God has said to them in his Word." - John Blanchard, quoted by R. Kent Hughes, 'Free Church Worship: The Challenge of Freedom', Worship by the Book, ed. D.A. Carson, 2002.

Extreme? I wish I could read the Bible in church like that.

Read The Bible II

More from Oliver O'Donovan's latest lecture, The Reading Church: Scriptural Authority in Practice:

“No collective spiritual exercise, no sacrament, no act of praise or prayer is so primary to the catholic identity of the church gathered as the reading and recitation of Scripture. It is the nuclear core. When Paul instructed his letters to be passed from church to church and read, it was the badge of the local church’s catholic identity. This is not to devalue preaching, praise, prayer, let alone sacramental act; these all find their authorisation in reading. As we know from St Thomas Aquinas, the act of breaking bread and sharing wine is not a Eucharist unless the narrative of the institution at the Last Supper is read.”

This reminds me of something Ian Powell said in a talk several years ago. The most important thing we do at church (besides meet with Jesus) isn't the music, or the supper, or even the sermon. The most important thing we do is to hear God's word. So pay attention.

But here's a question. We read far less of the scriptures in church then our brothers and sisters did a 100 years ago. And it seems as though many Christians today read far less of the bible then they would have a 100 years ago, even a generation ago. Is there any connection between the two?

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."

Gunton on Scripture and Systematic Theology

Find the original article here.
"Systematic theology is the rational dimension of the conversation that is initiated by God at the creation and continued in the history of God's dealings with the world. The Bible's authority is that it represents the heart of that conversation, both its initiation and the particular human response that is Israel, Jesus, and the church. It sets the boundaries for the conversation, or the space within which human parrhesia is to make its response. But that response, too, is part of the work of God, for it is enabled to take place as the Spirit enables the earthen vessels of human language to become articulations in time both of the Word of God and of the human response to that Word. The conversation is incarnational and pneurnatological. As witness to the incarnation, Scripture is also witness both to the capacity of words to embody theological and other meaning and to a boundedness of content. With this word, theology is able to be Christian; without it, it ceases to be so. As sharing in the Spirit's constitution of a community of worship, life, and thought, theology is witness to the human imagination and reason's capacity to transform language so that it may by anticipation represent something of the truth that belongs to the end."

- Using and Being Used: Scripture and Systematic Theology by Colin Gunton

Oliver O'Donovan: Scripture and Obedience

"Professor Oliver O'Donovan FBA is Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh. He took up this post on 1 August 2006 and formerly was Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, University of Oxford and a Canon of Christ Church." (He also shared an office with Tom Wright for a while). Michael Jensen has been working on his PhD with Prof. O'Donovan.

You can download his latest sermon, of the fulcrum website here.

PS Oliver O'Donovan will be the author the Ashfield Summer bookclub will be reading.