Holy Reading
A package was awaiting me upon my return from holiday. It was a copy of Hans Boersma’s new book Pierced by Love, which is about the practice of lectio divina. His publicist had got in touch several weeks ago to ask if we’d like to interview him again on our Holy CofE podcast. I’d said yes and could she send me a copy of this book which was to be the subject of our interview. She didn’t reply and I forgot about it. I still haven’t heard from her.
I’ve read most of this book now and it’s had a profound effect upon me, drawing me back to the practice of meditation upon Scripture and prayerful application of it to my life.
A bit of history: I started my Christian life in the charismatic evangelical scene and I was encouraged to read the Bible and pray in my own personal times of devotion - quiet times. I did this consistently for many years and really got to know the Bible very well.
It’s a bit of a long story, but I became somewhat annoyed and disillusioned with aspects of that scene and went on a journey to discovery more about Christianity, the Church and theology. Several years ago now, I started to change my devotional times such that I was saying morning prayer instead of doing my reflection upon Scripture.
Saying the office of morning prayer is quite different to meditating upon the word. One of the main differences is that you tend to either listen to or read the set Scriptural readings once and then move on to the next bit of the office.
The difference with meditation upon Scripture is that you attend to the Scripture for an extended period of time, chewing it over, sitting with it in silence, thinking about it, praying that God would illuminate the meaning of it for your life.
Boersma starts with a quote from the Church father Origen, which really summarises this most important aspect of the book. This is from a letter to Gregory Thaumaturgus, giving some advice about the subject:
Devote yourself first and foremost to reading the holy Scriptures; but devote yourself. For when we read holy things we need much attentiveness, lest we say or think something hasty about them. And when you are devoting yourself to reading the sacred texts with faith and an attitude pleasing to God, knock on its closed doors, and it will be opened to you [Matt. 7:7] by the gatekeeper of whom Jesus spoke: “The gatekeeper opens to him” [John 10:3]. And when you devote yourself to the divine reading, uprightly and with a faith fixed firmly on God seek the meaning of the divine words which is hidden from most people. Do not stop at knocking and seeking, for the most necessary element is praying to understand the divine words.
Hans Boersma, Pierced by Love: Divine Reading with the Christian Tradition, pp.2-3
The key words here, as far as I’m concerned, are: Devote yourself, attentiveness, faith and prayer. I’m always in too much of a rush. I need to make time and space for the word of God.
Reading this book has helped me to understand that what I was doing earlier in my Christian life was very similar to what Christians have been doing throughout the entirety of the history of the Church. It is often called lectio divina. Whereas lectio divina has a more formal structure than the kind of meditation that I practiced for years, they are nevertheless very similar ways of engaging with Scripture.
One of the important points about this is that reflection upon the word of God, and the application of the word to one’s life, is not some kind of peculiar, modern evangelical eccentricity. It is an absolutely central and crucial part of all Christian spirituality.
I think it’s actually a great deception that has come into people’s minds that the Bible is only for evangelicals and the rest of the church rightly emphasises other things such as the Holy Spirit or the Sacraments. All of these things are necessary and central. There should be no embarrassment about this.
You might be wondering what the method is for practicing lectio divina. Boersma’s book isn’t primarily about method, but he does give a nice little summary of the four basic steps and how to do them. I’ll reproduce them in a photograph below:
There you can see the four steps: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. In Latin: lectio, meditatio, oratio and contemplatio.
You might wonder what Scriptures to use in your meditation. The answer is it doesn’t matter too much but, if you are just starting off with Scripture, then it’s best to start with a Gospel such as the Gospel of John and just to select a short section and work through it in order. At the moment, I’m using the New Testament readings from morning prayer in our lectionary.
Understanding Scripture is compared to breaking the skin of a grape before chewing upon upon it. Breaking the skin is part of the lectio (reading) stage. Chewing upon the grape is the meditatio (meditation) aspect. Understanding Scripture involves effort and, if you’re starting off, you may want to use a commentary or a study Bible alongside your reading in order to aid your understanding.
As for me, I’ve been inspired by this book both to go back to my Koine Greek (the language the New Testament was written in) and to try and get back in to Bible memorisation.
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