Most of us are regular Bible readers. We read daily or weekly or in some consistent fashion. We study the Scriptures and some of us teach the Scriptures. Our usual strategy for reading the Bible is to break it down into a couple of chapters a day. We read the text, possibly study, meditate, and even apply the text in some fashion to our personal life. While such a model fits our 21st century activity packed lifestyles, this is not how the Scriptures were originally read. While we may not distort the original meaning of the text by reading it the way we tend to do, it might help some of us to consume the Scriptures as they were originally intended.
I have often shared in Bible class and from the pulpit that the one thing that really changed the way I understood the Bible was by listening to it being read. Think about it: the Christians in the first century did not have their own Bible, audio files, or Bible apps or even all of the books of the Bible like we do. Most of them didn’t even read the Bible; they heard it read in the assembly.
Imagine being a part of the church at Philippi. Sometime around AD 50, the Apostle Paul helped to establish a congregation of believers at Philippi (Acts 16:11-40). After being imprisoned, and eventually released, Paul left Philippi with the established congregation never knowing if they would hear from him again. It’s possible that Luke stayed behind to help keep the church connected with Paul. We know that the church at Philippi significantly helped to support Paul (Philippians 4:15-16).
It was around ten years after the baptism of the first convert in Philippi that Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians. Do you think they read a chapter a week in a Bible class? What about a chapter a day? Their practice was for one individual to read the entire letter aloud to the assembly when they received it! They didn’t stop every few verses to analyze the meaning or nuance of the words. They read the entire letter aloud for all to hear. It wasn’t passed around for everyone to read individually. The letter was too precious. Eventually it would be copied and shared with other congregations, but it was very rare for individuals to have their own copy of any Scripture. This is because writing materials weren’t readily available and therefore costly, plus not everyone was educated enough to read and write.
Those in the first century heard (or had the rare opportunity to read) the complete letter with the sole goal of understanding the message intended by the writer. After the letter was read in its entirety, then they engaged in the discussion of its meaning.
While we can continue to read and study the Bible like we do and still acquire the meaning God intended, it might benefit us to approach the study of individual books, like Philippians, by reading the entire letter through once a week on our own and then together when we come together to study.
We are so blessed to have the entire Bible readily available to us in so many formats. If you have yet to listen to a complete book of the Bible in its entirety, I strongly suggest you make the effort to do so. You might find that listening to a letter, like Philippians, in its entirety, might provide you with insight or meaning that you never had before.
