Stop Reading Your Bible
A common critique of Protestantism is that we have traded one pope for a million. It's claimed, especially amongst Roman Catholics, that Sola Scriptura is only capable of isolating every man on his own hermeneutical island. It's not, however, Luther's fault that, even when reading the Bible, everyone does what is right in his own eyes. Many have placed the blame at the feet of a different German, Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg. This highly praised printing press innovator and movable type aficionado incited what might be thought of as a hermeneutical sea change. He midwifed the birth of widespread literacy and this, in turn, led to Holy Writ slowly morphing from the Word of God being a thing worthy of our submission to it becoming, instead, an object over which mankind could stand in judgment. In the wake of this event, Protestants have made our personal interpretation the infallible word, rather than the Scriptures themselves. We have let our eyes, not our ears, shape our faith.
What is Holy Scripture? God's Word? God's Word through human authors? If Holy Scripture is the very Word of God, how should we respond to that Word? Our first clue comes from creation itself. In the first chapter of Genesis, the Word of God makes the heavens and the earth and all that is within them. His speech efficaciously brings life, and makes worlds. He crafts an ear for all of creation to hear Him, and creation faithfully obeys. Light as light, waters teeming with creatures, crops bringing forth seed, and on and on. Breakdown doesn’t occur until that moment when Adam and Eve begin to listen to a snaky voice that contradicts God's.
It is God's Word that upholds, that determines plumb lines, and that patterns the world. It is the proclamation of God's Word through preaching, that the Reformation renewed. The minister preaching, and the people hearing. The Reformation had a far larger scope than simply renewing preaching, but for our purposes it is a helpful reminder that Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli were less concerned with literacy and more concerned with people hearing and submitting to the Word of God.
In a print-saturated world such as ours, it is understandable if we do not think of there being much of a difference between reading and hearing, but think of it this way: what does your mother's voice look like on the page? The eyes interact with the world differently than does the ear.
As the image bearers of God, the human body is an analogy by which God teaches us about Himself. If we take passages about God seeing, or God's eyes, we begin to recognize what is in view when God “looks”. Back to creation, at the end of each event God “sees” what is made and calls it good. When God judges the world and is about to send a flood, it is Noah who, “finds favor in the eyes of the Lord,” (Gen 6:8). We begin to notice God's eyes are the organ of judgment; “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3). The connection between the eyes of God being organs of judgment and our eyes being organs of judgment is crystallized at the fall of man. Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “and their eyes were opened, and they saw that they were naked,” (Gen 3:6). They saw, and were now in a position of judging.
It was Adam and Eve seeing that the tree was a delight to the eyes that urged them to disregard the word they had heard from God. This is the impulse of eyes. Our sight establishes us in a vantage of judgment. We turn subjects into objects because we are the subject. It is us doing the doing. This is true even when it comes to the Holy Scriptures. If we let our eyes poke and prod at it like a thing to be dissected we begin to judge the Word, rather than having the Word judge us.
The change comes slowly, over time. This is why the math on Guttenburg and widespread literacy is showing itself fully developed in our own day and not in 1517. The entire West is built upon peering into books for our own purposes, not the purposes of the author. Authority has moved, over time, from the author, to the person reading the work of the author. This is why Protestants have millions of popes. We’ve developed a natural inclination to read God’s Word even more than to hear it.
The only way out of this death spiral is through the ear canal. Hear the Word. The relationship between God's speech and God's Word is not incidental. The Word proclaimed provokes faith. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. (Rom 10:17). The ear is a submitting organ. You can't shut your ears like your mouth or eyes. The ear receives whatever sounds are in its environment. It is through the ear we are disciplined by the proclamation of the Word. The ear is used in participation with the voice of the congregation in praising God's Word. It is by hearing that obedience comes. Genesis 22:18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. Abraham hears and obeys God's voice. In Psalm 61:1 when David's cry is heard by God, God acts, Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. When David asks God to hear him, the request implies God will do something in response to hearing the prayer. It is hearing that results in faithful action. God's Word does not return void and it is sent to accomplish God's purposes. Jesus, the Word incarnate, tells us in John 10:27, My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they know me. Therefore, we must hear God's Word in order to be faithful servants of the King, not spectators questioning the calls.
Hearing is inherently communal. It implies speaker and audience. Reading is inherently individualistic. Hearing reasserts a Creator/creation distinction. Alpha/beta. God/man. You hear the Word spoken, sung, and preached, in gathered worship and that communal hearing knits a people together in like-minded submission.
The way back from our purloined sense of authority is our common submission to the Voice of God. We need our whole being to be placed on the fiery altar of God's throat so we can ascend the mountain as one pleasing aroma. We need to hear The Subject. By all means read the Word, but know what tricks your eyes want to play. Despite the flippant title, I am not condemning the entire enterprise of reading. Rather, when you read from now on, simply acknowledge the trade-off. If we are aware of what the eye does, then we can employ it and discipline it properly. Here are some suggested ways to guard against the dangers being discussed here. Try reading the Word out loud in order to help train your ear to receive the Word. Download a Bible app and let the Word be read to you. Your job is not to develop pet doctrines or find ways to disagree with your elders or brethren. Your job is to be shaped into the Image of God by His Word. We are to learn to pray according to His Word. This job cannot be fulfilled without faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
