GUIDELINES FOR READING SCRIPTURE

In this parish, as with most of the Episcopal Church, we follow the Revised Common Lectionary in both Sunday Reading and daily reading of Bible. The lessons to be heard on the folowing Sunday are printed in our bulletin each week in hopes parishioners might look at those lessons prior to the next Sunday worship. Having read the lessons and thought about them in advance of the worship time lets people hear the lesson and sermon in the context of their week and with some knowledge of what is being talked about in the worship setting. Good Bibles to read from are Oxford’s New Revised Standard Bible (NRSV), Harper’s Study Bible (also NRSV), or even the old favorites such as the King James Version (KJV) or the Good News Bible. It is best to stay away from Bible paraphrases such as The Living Bible for they are not translations but someone’s interpretation of what the Bible says. The New International Version (NIV) is a translation but with an evangelical interpretation woven into it. This is not a bad thing but the reader should be aware of this bias.

Reading Holy Scripture
Here are some preliminary questions that can inform a thoughtful reading of Scripture:

What is the nature of this particular book of the Bible? The Bible is a library of several different genres of literature, including history, epic, law codes, poetry, letters, biography, wisdom literature, liturgical texts, and prophetic utterances. It is important to distinguish one from another and to know whether a particular passage is meant as poetry, for example, or as law.

What is the context of the particular passage that I am reading? What is the historical context? When was it written, to whom, by whom, and why?

What did this passage, or this book of the Bible, mean to its readers at the time?

• What does this passage say to me now?