To read the Bible well in public we must love it

These are some helpful thoughts from AW Tozer on how to read the Bible well in public. There is more to it than most think and, in my experience, few who do it well. 

“To read the Bible well in public we must first love it. The voice, if it is free, unconsciously follows the emotional tone. Reverence cannot be simulated. No one who does not feel the deep solemnity of the Holy Word can properly express it. God will not allow His Book to become the plaything of the rhetorician. That is why we instinctively draw back from every simulated tone in the reading of the Scriptures. The radio announcer’s artificial unction cannot hide the absence of the real thing. The man who stands to declaim the Scriptures like a schoolboy reciting a passage from Hamlet can only leave his hearers with a feeling of disappointment. They know they have been cheated, though most of them could not tell just how.

Again, to read the Bible well, one must know what the words mean and allow them to mean just that, without putting any body English on the passage to make it take a turn of meaning not found in the text. Probably the hardest part of learning to read well is eliminating ourselves. We read best when we get ourselves out of the transaction and let God talk through the imperfect medium of our voice.

The beginner should read aloud whole books of the Bible in the privacy of his own room. In that way he can learn to hear his own voice and will know how he sounds to others. Let him consult a pronouncing Bible to learn the correct pronunciations of the names and places of the Bible. Let him cultivate the habit of reading slowly and distinctly with the reverence and dignity proper to the subject matter. Surely Protestants deserve a better sort of Scripture reading than they are now getting in our churches. And we who do the reading are the only ones who can give it to them.”

— A. W. Tozer, The Next Chapter after the Last, “On the Public Reading of the Scriptures"

A Unique Bible Reading Plan

There is nothing that will stoke, shape, and transform your relationship with Jesus than consistent, focused, and intentional time in the Scriptures, the Bible. Though many of us know this theoretically, we struggle to implement it in the every day. Often, at least in my life, this is due to the fact that we don’t have a plan. I need some structure to my reading, otherwise it can devolve into a mere emotional exercise of “What do I feel like reading today?” So, if we’re discouraged, we go to Ecclesiastes. If we’re angry we go to Judges. If we’re happy we go to Philippians. If all else fails, we go to the Psalms. Having some sort of Bible reading plan can help keep our reading fresh, structured and moving forward. It’s helpful to sit down, open your Bible and know where you’re going. Over the years, I’ve used a number of plans but inevitably there were aspects to each I found cumbersome or less than ideal. So, two years ago I combined my two favorite readings plans to leverage the benefits of each – M’Cheyne Bible Reading plan and the Navigator Bible Reading plan. [From the Downtown Cornerstone Church blog.]

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Gospel of Mark sermon series trailer

Yesterday, we began a new sermon series through the Gospel of Mark and used the clip above to capture some of the events in chapters 1-8. I love what our creative team did with it. This is an old story, with significant present day implications. Nearly 2,000 years ago, in a small rural province of Roman-ruled Israel, there was a man who claimed to not only be a king, but the King; not only one sent from God, but the Son of God. His name was Jesus. In dramatic detail, the Gospel of Mark tells the riveting story of Jesus’ brief years of ministry in sixteen short, action-packed chapters. Mark, an assistant to the apostle Peter, is a masterful story-teller. Using a style of writing that is simple and original he recounts the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; events which form the very center of cosmic and human history. Join us as we explore the life and work of the One who fulfilled all the Old Testament hopes for the coming Christ, the Messiah, and see first-hand how only his story makes sense of our own. [From the Downtown Cornerstone Church blog.]

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Be careful how you treat God

“Be careful how you treat God, my friends. You may say to yourself, ‘I can sin against God and then, of course, I can repent and go back and find God whenever I want him.’ You try it. And you will sometimes find that not only can you not find God but that you do not even want to. You will be aware of a terrible hardness in your heart. And you can do nothing about it. And then you suddenly realize that it is God punishing you in order to reveal your sinfulness and your vileness to you. And there is only one thing to do. You turn back to him and you say, ‘O God, do not go on dealing with me judicially, though I deserve it. Soften my heart. Melt me. I cannot do it myself.’ You cast yourself utterly upon his mercy and upon his compassion.”

— D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival (Westchester, 1987), p 300

Simply to say prayers is not to pray

I am devoting a significant portion of my allotted reading this year to CS Lewis. You may have noticed an inordinate number of references and quotes by Lewis, from me, over the last 12 months and that is why. Though not a theologian, he was a brilliant thinker and a genius at taking profound truths and (literally) making them accessible to children. Like us, he too lived in a world of war, urbanization, increasing secularization and unbelief (popular and academic) in regards to the truthfulness of Christianity. Though imperfect, and oddly eccentric, we still have much to learn from him. Most recently I completed reading The World's Last Night and Other Essays, one of which was on the Efficacy of Prayer. Here's a sample:

“Simply to say prayers is not to pray; otherwise a team of properly trained parrots would serve as well as men....The very question “Does prayer work?” puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. “Work”: as if it were magic, or a machine - something that functions automatically. Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person. Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine.”

An opportunity to become a disciple-making-disciple (and be trained to plant a church)

This fall Downtown Cornerstone Church, which gathers in downtown Seattle, is rolling out two discipleship training tracks: a 1-Year Gospel Leader track and a 2-Year Pastor/Church Planter Residency. Each track leverages a mixture of BILD, Porterbrook and other resources to create a world-class, yet very local, training environment for making disciple-making-disciples. This is a great opportunity to be further equipped, whether you hope to go deeper in your relationship with Jesus, desire to grow as a disciple-maker and/or be trained as a church planter. For more information, track descriptions, frequently-asked-questions and to enroll, go here. 

Do you know about Acts 29?

One of the unique joys and privileges of my life has been to participate in what God is doing in and through Acts 29. I have been on staff, served as a regional director, helped establish a presence in South America and, now, as a church planter. Over the course of last ten years the network has grown from a small huddle of like-minded pastors to a global network of over 500 churches-planting-churches. In this new video, Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church and president of Acts 29 talks about the network and where God is leading us. If you would like to learn more about planting with Acts 29 go here. If you would like to learn more about participating in an urban church planter residency with us, go here. 

As of 2013, here is where the network stands:

• 482 Churches within Acts 29
• 142,932 People attending Acts 29 churches
• 61 Countries supported through the work of Acts 29 churches
• 6 Continents represented by Acts 29 churches
• 18 Denominations represented within Acts 29
• 10,026 Baptisms at Acts 29 churches in 2012
• 97.9% Planter success rate
• $18M Given to church planting initiatives in 2012
• 273 Church planters sent out in 2012

 Learn more about the Acts 29 distinctives here.  
Learn more about the Four Hopes of Acts 29 here.