In my Leadership class here at IWU students are required to read and master two books during the first week of class. Few students can accomplish this without developing some “rapid reading techniques,” which is, of course, part of the assignment’s purpose.
This week we’re in the middle of that “reading week” and
I’ve received several student notes thanking me for “pushing us beyond what we
thought we could do.” One was
particularly interesting. The student
said, “and I even
comprehended just as much if not more than I would regularly read a book!” What Eddie had discovered is what all effective rapid readers learn –
proper rapid reading actually increases comprehension. One can read faster and retain more with
rapid reading techniques.
But that’s not the
only gain from rapid reading. The
faster one reads the more likely they are to get the over all point of the
work. That is, laboring slowly through
words and sentences, cogitating on each one endlessly while listening to a CD,
actually may cloud one’s understanding of the author’s big ideas. The slower one reads the less likely we are
to get the over all point of the book.
Which brings me to
the Bible. Our standard scheme of Bible
study (especially on a college campus) is to take a tiny portion of Scripture –
often even a phrase -- and chew it to death with our exegesis, exposition and
application. It is our way of Bible
study. I do it too – and I love it.
But there’s a big
snare here. When I pluck a tiny portion
of a letter and beat it to death with exposition I sometimes miss the big
picture. I am becoming an expert in
leaf study but the shape of the entire tree escapes me. And even if I see a dim shape of the
tree, the idea of a “forest” never
occurs to me (let alone “forest ecology”).
Such Bible study makes us like the plodding reader who decides he’ll
understand a book better by reading only one sentence a day. He “understands” the day’s sentence
wonderfully but misses the main point of the book. Indeed, our repeated reprocessing of tiny pieces of Scripture
term by term sometimes yields all kinds of “deep truths” I suspect St. Paul, or
James, or John – the original authors -- never even imagined!
So how would our
understanding of Scripture change if we sat down and read the entire book of
Mark in one sitting? Would we “get
less” or might we understand the central message of Mark better? What if we used rapid reading techniques on
the Bible for a spell? What would we
get we are now missing?
But there’s a
second issue here besides private personal reading. How about public reading of Scripture? What if we started reading whole books in
worship at one sitting? What would we
gain? Lose? (I know, I know, “Today’s listeners won’t put up with hearing you
read to them.”) But what if they
would? What if you read the entire
Sermon on the Mount this Sunday as a single reading? (For one thing, it’d be shorter than a regular message.) But if you did what would your people hear
that they’ve been missing with our short, “Blessed are the meek…” snippet
before launching into our sermon? What
if we took the Scripture so seriously that we actually thought it was equally
important as a sermon? (Equally?) What
would people hear that they’ve been missing in the snippets we now give them?
But there’s even a
third notion here worth examining: public hearing of Scripture. What if the message of the Bible comes
across differently when heard? A solid
argument can be made that the Bible – especially the New Testament -- was never
intended to be read at all, but rather heard. That is, when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he
really was writing to a real congregation of people in Corinth and he really
expected someone to read this letter aloud to the congregation, perhaps he even
sent his own representative to read it (Titus?). And the Corinthians were to hear the reading in their worship assembly. Would hearing Corinthians read as a group
communicate something differently than reading it personally, or studying it
over the next quarter in a Sunday school class? To the ancient worshipping congregation the Bible was something to
be heard, not read or studied piecemeal. In worship the Scripture was read –
both Old and New Testaments – and it was heard by the people. There were “readers” (lectors) who
specialized in dramatic reading of Scripture long before the “sermon” became
longer and more central than Scripture.
So, if Scripture
was originally intended to be read aloud in larger portions and thus heard
in collective worship, does that mean its use today should be the same? Or are we free to treat Scripture
differently than it was intended to be used by the first writers?
-- For tips and hints on speed reading see Tuesday Column on “Rapid Reading Techniques.”
-- See this essay for more discussion of what the Bible really means?.
So what do you think?
To
contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu
Other
"Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .
By Keith Drury September, 2000. You are free to transmit, duplicate or distribute this article for non-profit use without permission.