Scripture 04: Reading Scripture as a Spiritual Discipline

Rule of Life

Practicing the Way

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 700 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Mark and guests Dr. Tim Mackie, Dr. Brittany Kim, and Hakeem Bradley explore what it means to read Scripture as a spiritual discipline and why, as apprentices of Jesus, reading is ultimately about following him and becoming like him.

Reading Scripture aloud in groups, a tradition rooted in early house churches, allowed for a shared, transformative encounter with Scripture — and it’s a practice we can rediscover today. Whether done privately or corporately, reading longer sections and reading aloud help us capture the literary design and thematic unity often missed in fragmented readings.

This podcast accompanies the Scripture Practice, a four-session experience designed to help your community read the Bible as apprentices of Jesus. Learn more at practicingtheway.org/scripture.

Our Practices are free, thanks to the generosity of The Circle and other givers. Learn more about The Circle at practicingtheway.org/give. Run a Practice with your community and find other resources at practicingtheway.org/resources.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Rule of Life podcast from practicing the way.
0:05.1	In each season, we explore an ancient practice from the way of Jesus and its relevance for the modern era.
0:11.6	This is Season 6, Scripture. Okay, everybody, here we are our final episode of the Scripture series at Bible Project with the scholar team.
0:43.0	We have been exploring seven pillars of how to read scripture.
0:46.6	And then in our final episode, we get into kind of more how to read scripture as a spiritual discipline.
0:54.2	Most of our conversation has been more on the like, what is the Bible side of the equation,
0:59.3	which of course naturally intuitively leads to how do you engage with it.
1:02.9	But I'd love just to assess out your wisdom of how to read it, you know, not just informationally,
1:09.1	as Mahalind would put it, but formationally in such a way that it has the effect it was designed for.
1:15.6	So maybe to start, I mean, we left off in the last episode talking about how it's communal
1:20.6	literature for a very long time it would have been experienced out loud orally, sitting with
1:26.6	your house church in Philippi with 45
1:29.2	people in an opening your courtyard and somebody's reading Ephesians to you in one sitting or whatever,
1:34.0	you know.
1:35.0	So I know you guys have been a proponent of trying to, even though we're not in an oral culture,
1:40.0	bring some level of that back.
1:41.6	I mean, tell me more about how, you know, you recommend or
1:45.6	imagine communities reading scripture together. The simplest way is the simplest way.
1:55.4	Most of us live somewhere. Yes. Where you could have more than yourself together in that room and you could read the
2:04.8	Bible out loud to each other and then talk about it.
2:08.2	But actually I do have something in mind a little different than like what comes into
2:13.2	people's minds with like Bible.
	...

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