Essentials Red Week 2
June 22, 2009
For “The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Course, with Dan Wilt“.
This week in Essentials Red we looked at the historical use of the public reading of scripture and public prayer in gatherings of worship. The ideas that stuck with me the most was this idea that the process of reading scripture collectively engages us in the process of remembering who we are and where we come from.
This idea particularly resonated as I had read an article about the Slate.com writer David Plotz who blogged about his process of exploring the Bible. He made a comment about the things that he learned through the reading of the Old Testament, one of them was that the difference between the people of Israel and the other tribes that lived in the biblical holy land was that the Jewish believers communicated their stories from generation to generation and on throughout history. Today if you reflect on those people, only the Israelites and their descendants are in existence today as a tribe. The root is that they kept record of their history and passed along their traditions.
In the context of today’s worship how can we use scripture read publicly to connect us to that great sense of history of Jesus and his disciples, the power of the resurrection and holy spirit. When we use scripture publicly, we continue to pass down that message of the saving works that can change lives and destinies.
