I have logged quite a few hours in evangelical churches over the past 20 years. I have attended lots of worship services, ministry events and youth group meetings. In that time I have noticed that one of the most ancient of practices is often missing from all of these gatherings. The public reading of Scripture is a practice encouraged by Moses and Joshua, practiced by King Josiah, Nehemiah, Jesus, Paul and Timothy, yet it is often absent from the regular practice of many Evangelical Churches. Can anyone explain this phenomenon (has anyone else noticed this oddity)?

Why would so many Evangelicals, who seem to pride themselves of being “people of the Book,” shy away from the public reading of scripture. Why does the Bible only get read in the midst of a 30-40 minute sermon (and often it is a verse from here and a verse from there - or every other verse from a portion of a chapter)? Why don’t we take the time and demonstrate that we value people “hearing the Bible read” in our services and meetings? How did this ancient practice get overlooked and squeezed out of our informal liturgies? Will we be satisfied to allow this practice to make only an occassional appearance in our meetings and services?

I can guess at some reasons why the public reading of scripture has been put aside in too many Evangelical worship services:

1. time - our services are centered on the sermon/homily/message, special music, the offering and singing. Practically there just isn’t time for another transition that would allow the public reading of scripture.

2. administration - it is one more thing to plan and demands energy to find and maintain a schedule of readers (we just can’t muster the administrative muscle).

3. trust - we don’t trust the scripture to be used by God to speak to our people without the explanation and interpretation of a trained pastor.

I am only guessing at the causes, it is more likely a combination of issues and it is probably more complex than my simple analysis suggests. I really haven’t researched this issue - hopefully it isn’t as widespread a problem as I think it is (but I am afraid it is). That being said, I do hope we can rediscover the need for young people and adults to “hear God’s written word read.” I hope that we can make room for this practice and demonstrate our trust in the words recorded for us that make up the Old and New Testament. I pray that as we gather as God’s people we would again publically read the scripture (without feeling like we need to add our words to it).

“…give attention to the public reading of scripture” I Timothy 4.13