The Public Reading of Scripture

I had the opportunity on June 16 to be the guest Scripture reader for Blaine Baptist Church. Pastor Nathan Hitz, a recent graduate, has begun a once-a-month evening for the public reading of the Bible. He purposes to take the admonition of 1 Tim 4:13 quite literally. My section to read was 1 Corinthians—the whole book. The reading without stops or commentary of any sort took just over an hour. I had liberty to choose the version and read from the ESV in large part to help me become more familiar with that version. This represented quite a change from my normal KJV. At times, I fought the wording of the ESV because I knew how the translation most familiar to me would sound. I thought the ESV translators did a nice job, with a few exceptions (such as “betrothed” in chapter 7).

I have read the Scriptures publicly for years, as any pastor has done. This, however, was something new. Reading Scripture for that length of time in front of people was amazing.

I found the preparation for the reading different than anything I had done before. The flow of the book—instead of the divisions—came to the forefront. It surprised me to see how many questions Paul asks in the book—over 110. Noting these became a critical part of reading with some expression. If I were to repeat the process, I think a larger font would help, perhaps even a printout where more markings could be made. After finishing, we were left pondering how Corinth might have reacted after hearing the book read to them for the very first time.

I commend this practice to every church with the caveat that churches should not enter into the reading of the Scriptures lightly.