The Bible: Read, learn and digest
by Julian Mann, TCW:
THE Prayer Book Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent is a powerful spur to the Christian discipline of personal Bible reading.
The Collect draws on the Apostle Paul’s statement in Romans chapter 15 verse 4, which begins the Epistle reading for today: ‘Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope’ (King James Version).
Paul was referring to the Old Testament Scriptures here, since the New Testament had not yet been completed when he wrote to the Christians at Rome in around AD 57. Paul reminded his Christian readers that God had always intended the Old Testament Scriptures to serve the spiritual education of those, both Jew and Gentile, who would come to believe in the promised Messiah, proclaimed as Jesus Christ by the witnesses of his resurrection from the dead.
In its reference to ‘all holy Scriptures’, the Collect encompasses both the Old and New Testaments: ‘Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.’
It is significant that the Collect refers to the Scriptures as ‘thy (the Lord’s) holy Word’. Thus, according to traditional Anglican teaching, the Bible is ultimately not the word of man but the Word of God. The human authors of the 66 books of the Bible were inspired by the Holy Spirit so that what they wrote is spiritually and morally authoritative for God’s people down the ages and reveals his saving truth to sinful people.
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