Bible Sunday
This Sunday is sometimes also called ‘Bible Sunday’ to remind us of the central importance of Holy Scripture in our lives. Clearly it is not enough to hear the Bible read in small portions on Sundays in church. The Bible needs to be a witness to the living word of God. We need to find time to read in it and live with it in such a way that God’s word becomes the fountain from which our lives are refreshed.
Reading and studying the Bible is a form of communion with God through which we are fed. St Paul makes the distinction between treating the Bible as a written code, full of wooden and dead words and – on the other hand – letting the words come alive through the Holy Spirit in our lives (2 Corinthians 3,6). Whether we read the Bible in groups or alone, we must not remain at the dry surface meaning of individual words and sentences (better known as ‘Bible bashing’) but we must enter ourselves into the story and meet God as we do so. Chiara Lubich, the founder of the ‘focolari movement’ said once that if all Bibles were lost or burnt one day, people ought to be able to re-write it simply by observing the lives of Christians! This is the ancient prayer for this Sunday as written for the Book of Common Prayer:
“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever.”
Bernhard Schünemann
29 October 2017
