How do you feel about the Scriptures? What thoughts come to you as you read? Do they comfort you or challenge you? Do you love them or wrestle with them? Does God speak to you in them or are they opaque and bothersome?

My primary relationship with the Scriptures as I was growing up was as a “Bible.” It was a book I carried with me when I went to Church. There was no Bible reading in our home. There was a large “family Bible” that was positioned on a coffee table in the Living Room. Generally, it was never opened. The books, both my personal copy and the family copy, were objects.

My first attempt at reading the Scriptures happened around age 15. I was reading some essays of Tolstoy that were given me by my older brother, a college student. Tolstoy exalted the Sermon on the Mount above all of the Scriptures and pressed his readers to treat them as literally as possible. Those few short chapters became my “Bible within the Bible” for a time. It was the first time that I had ever read the Scriptures with an assumption that they were supposed to speak to me.

In college and seminary, I was introduced to the historical-critical method of reading Scripture. I had little understanding that the method entailed a world of theological and metaphysical assumptions and that a veil would suddenly be placed between my heart and the text. I offer an analogy.

Imagine that every time you receive the Holy Eucharist, your mind is filled with thoughts of the chemistry of bread and wine. Indeed, the thoughts become so dominant that the presence of Christ is largely forgotten. In particular, the relationship of heart to sacrament is disrupted. If, in such circumstances, someone began to absent themselves from communion, it would not be surprising.

The reading of Scripture in the life of the Church is quite properly compared to the reception of communion – for the Scriptures are best described as sacramental in nature.¹ Like many other things in the Church’s life, this sacramental view was disrupted by certain currents within the Reformation and subsequent modern developments.

As the Reformation rejected the authority of the papacy, questions of authority naturally arose. Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) became the default position. But how was the Scripture to be read? As time moved forward, history became the dominant means of interpretation and reading. By the 19th century, history became embedded in the new “science of history,” in which various pieces of evidence (archaeology, etymology, etc., and an entire notion of peer-reviewed speculations) were brought forward as the arbiters of how we read.

If the whole time you read, the question is, “Did this happen? Did it happen like this?” etc. there is no engaging of the Scripture as Scripture. The distance between reader and text could hardly be greater.

I was schooled in these methods. At the same time, I was aware of the older, sacramental view of Scripture and I found myself wrestling with the two. I have (from time to time) humorously quipped, “I was trained as an Anglican: I can doubt anything.” It’s a joke, but it’s also a description of an inner voice that chatters on at unwelcome moments. It creates separation during times when communion and intimate participation are required. I suspect that I’m not alone in such an experience.

In the early Church, the Fathers were insistent on the four gospels, well aware of the discrepancies between their accounts. They were not just insistent on these texts, but were equally convinced that the number four itself was significant. And so we have the Tetramorph, seen in Ezekiel and in Revelation, with the four beasts around the throne of God: the image of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. To this day, these are the images of the four evangelists and the gospels. It places us in the midst of a full sacramental vision.

In the Orthodox Church, the book of the gospels rests on the altar. This, too, is sacramental, representing the “Lamb’s Book of Life,” as described on the altar in heaven. The ceremony that surrounds the reading of the gospels calls us to the sacrament. “Wisdom! Let us be attentive!” We stand to listen. We venerate the book with a kiss. It is not a response of analysis but of love (the language of the noetic life). Learning to read the Scriptures as sacrament is frequently difficult for many people.

Interestingly, my wife grew up with a sacramental view. She was raised in a pious Baptist family, where, she says, the Scriptures were not hammered as “this is the Word of God you have to believe everything in it.” Instead, it was seen as the book through which and in which you encounter God. God speaks in the Scriptures.

This is a place that I have worked to nurture in my own heart. The historical-critical years and training never truly disappear. Indeed, sometimes my own questions may legitimately go there – the early Fathers sometimes posed historical questions – they are not out-of-bounds. But it is essential to understand that this easily interferes with the Scripture as sacrament – with the Scripture as the place where we encounter God Himself.

The ability to perceive in a sacramental manner (which is noetic perception) is deeply crippled in our culture. We are driven by information and are highly skilled at obtaining it. However, it can make us unable to hear what is unspoken or to see what is hidden. Such signals can be deeply important in human relationships, both with others, ourselves, and the world around us.

St. Porphyrios famously said that “in order to become a Christian, one must first become a poet.” It is a way of expressing the sacramental character of life in the world. Our drive to manage and control (“If I knew and understood, then I’d know how to fix”) puts poetry on mute. Every human being, every blade of grass, even the whole of the world is a sacrament of the good God.

In my life at present, I work to silence the historical critic who resides in my head. When I need his questions, I’ll consult him. But I strive to still my heart and let it be present to the voice of God – in the Scriptures – and in everything around me. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote: “He who possesses in truth the word of Jesus can hear even its silence” (Eph. XV)

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard.
Their sound has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.”

(Psalm 19:1–4)

Wisdom! Let us be attentive!

____

Photo: My childhood Bible, with markings from my time as a “Jesus Freak.”

1. Hans Boersma, an Anglican, has a very helpful book, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church.