Encountering the Bible: What it means to be Christian

Encountering the Bible is a lifelong, dynamic process in which this Bible becomes the word of God for each of us as we discover its relevance and wonder in our own lives and in our own times. As hard as we work at this process, our children and the next generations will need to go on their own journeys to claim it for their times.

This process comes to life in a story from a Filipina friend. One evening she was reading the Bible with a group of very poor fishermen in a small village. They had read Luke 1 and were beginning to discuss it. As they talked, they became aware of this young poor girl Mary who would bear the child.

They read the Magnificat (vv. 46-55) again. When they got to the part of scattering the proud and bringing low the powerful, the fishermen began to stir.

As they read that the hungry would be full and the rich would be empty, one of the men got up and took down the only picture on the wall and turned it around. The picture was of Mary with a crown and robe and jewels. As he did this he said, "Mary would not look like this, she would look like us!"

The text had become sacred. Sacred text had been heard in a fresh and more immediate way, and the word had become flesh.

An example of understanding this way of reading the Bible in the Americas was the important work of Ernesto Cardenal with the people of Solentiname in Nicaragua. The village people read the Bible text and then interpreted it in the context of their lives. For the first time people realized that living under the tyranny of poverty and militarism was not God’s will for them in the gospel.

This ritual of reading and hearing pushes us to seek answers to the same basic questions of the text that were asked for all times: "Who are we?" and "What should we do?" and maybe even more basic: "Who is our God?" Jews today still follow a weekly synagogue lesson schedule (lectionary) that provides for a reading aloud of the first five books of the Bible every year, a centuries-old practice. The text becomes sacred as the words take on meaning in the life of the hearer. Likewise, Christians who follow the traditional designated lectionary readings are assured that within a cycle of three years, the majority of the Christian Bible will be read out loud in worship.

This journey is one that we take as individuals and as communities. We hope that as we hear and read the Bible in the midst of our lives, involvement with the text will somehow transform us. The Bible, and the thousands of books that have been written about the Bible, help us understand what it means to be Christian.

Note: The picture shows Nuestra Señora de la Salud (Our Lady of Healing), located at a Roman Catholic shrine in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico. Though not the same image of the Virgin referred to in this story, it illustrates the type of image mentioned above. Courtesy of Nancy A. Carter.

This study is a resource from:
The Women's Division
General Board of Global Ministries
The United Methodist Church
E-mail: umw@gbgm-umc.org.
Web: http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/

Encountering the Bible*