When we read the Bible, what are we doing?

Or what is it doing to us?

To explain, we are once again joined by author and pastor Ray Ortland, who serves as the

senior pastor of a manual church in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ray explained this to us, what are we doing when we read the Bible?

What is striking to me about the Bible is that it exists at all as a book, as I am holding

mine in my hand right now.

It is this thing external to me, external to my own thoughts and feelings.

That is significant.

By being external, by being a book outside my head, the Bible provides a unifying rallying

point for all Christians so that we can gather around the Lord Himself in worship, in

community, in mission.

If all we had to go by was our own thoughts and feelings, our own intuitions and leadings,

we would fragment.

If we think we have a lot of disagreements now with the Bible, imagine what would happen,

how we would explode apart if all we had was our own personal subjectivity to define

the gospel.

So, the exteriority of the book pulls us out of ourselves and into something we can all

share together.

So I think of the Bible as the scepter of the king among his subjects.

It is the practical mechanism by which the will of the king exerts influence among us,

pulling us together.

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