God’s Fruit Stand

Recently I received an email that caused my heart to flutter.
“Pastor, I want to start reading the Bible. I was raised in a church that focused on one Bible verse at a time. But I want to read the Bible book by book. Where should I begin?”

Here was a plea for the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The writer was asking the right questions, and searching in the right place. Surely anyone who can read, can read the Bible!

From toddlers on up, we tell repackaged stories from these holy writings to children. Already in the 3rd grade, we as the church give students an unedited, complete, 66-book copy of this library of ancient scrolls. We don’t even indulge them with an easy-to-read Holy Bible. They receive the same carefully researched, mega-vocabulary translation that we use in church on Sunday mornings: The New Revised Standard Version.

But we don’t give children the Bible and say, “Read this on your own.” We give them teachers to guide their learning, and we place them in classes with other students, who will study with them--explore together the stories, the promise, the ideas and the rules--and grow together in faith.

The same is true for adults. Why join a Circle? Why participate in a Bible Study? These groups provide both a teacher or teachers, and a few companions, with whom to learn. For the women’s circles, the teacher is generally a book, or Gather, the magazine of the Women of the ELCA, with its Bible Studies and reflections.

Although anyone can read the Bible like a history book, or a novel, or an archeological artifact, no one who wants to know what it means, begins by reading the Bible alone. No one who is searching for faith, is going to be very successful, by reading the Bible individually, entrepreneurially.

Even within the Bible God gives instructions with a teacher to interpret them. Jesus was a quick learner, and started teaching the scribes in the Temple. But first he went to the scribes, to learn from them.

When foreigners to the Jewish people wanted to learn about the God of the Jews…God sent them Jesus, who reached beyond ethnic boundaries. Jesus taught, and then sent, disciples, both men and women, to the whole world. Peter, Paul, John and the rest, went out to gather Jews and Gentiles together, in Africa, Asia and Europe, to learn and then teach God’s Word together. “So let your church be gathered from all lands into your kingdom by your Son,” reads the Didache, or The Teachings, a 2nd century Christian writing found with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Bible doesn’t only need to be translated from the original Hebrew and Greek. It requires study. Which means sitting down with a teacher, or teachers, AND with other students, each of whose learning contributes to the learning of all.

One of the main reasons you have a church, and the church has a pastor, is so that you will have teachers to help you, and companions in learning, with whom to mine the great reservoir of grace, mercy, wisdom and challenge, that is God’s Holy Word revealed in Jesus Christ.

As with all pastors in the ELCA, and in most churches for that matter, I have a formal education in things biblical and theological. But I still turn to teachers, every single day: these are the books in my library, the academic journals I subscribe to, and the other preaching and teaching pastors with whom I meet every week. I read the Bible, sometimes cover to cover, sometimes through a book at a time, sometimes verse by verse…but I am not reading it on my own. I read it together with the church, which gives me lots and lots of teachers.

You who are reading this are my most important teachers.

So it is important, not only to you, but also to me: Please, DO READ your Bible!

If you have been studying the Bible in Sunday School, in worship, in Circle, for a long time, and feel it is time for you to read the connective tissue between the stories and passages that we use on Sunday morning, then by all means, tackle reading the Bible book by book.

If you feel this is the year for you to read the WHOLE bible, for the special, broad perspective on God and the world that will give you, I can provide you with a chart of readings. Or you can download one for yourself at Read-the-Bible-in-One-Year .

But more important is that you study the Bible together with a teacher, and with companions.

To the person who emailed me, I offered several teachers: two books (one on the Gospel of Matthew, one a summary of the whole story of the Bible, written by Pastor Dan Erlander), and myself, as needed.
This individual still needs a group of other students with whom to discuss the Holy Bible, and the comments of the teachers.

We have at Prince of Peace 8 regularly scheduled Bible studies:

• 3 women’s circles, meeting monthly, two during the day, and one in the evening


• Wednesday evening Bible Study that doubles as a new members’ class, meeting every other week


• Sunday morning Bible Study, meeting weekly


• Sunday School: Bible Study for our youngest members!


• Confirmation: Bible Study in depth for middle school and high school students


• Sunday morning worship: an extended meditation on two or three Bible readings, in music, sermon and prayer