M.O.D. - Read

I've received much feed back about people's interest in my recent posting about coaching discipleship as "living W.O.R.S.H.I.P.", so I've promised to write separate posts on each of the marks of discipleship in the acronym. This week's post is on the third mark, "read".

Read scripture to discover your role in God's salvation story.

My daughter exhibits much self-motivation to read books. This is due in a large part to the guidance of her parents and teachers. But we didn't give her this self-motivation by assigning her the task of reading so many books per day. Rather, she found her excitement to read by learning how to read for herself.

The same approach is taken in coaching the mark of discipleship concerning the reading of scripture. People are much less likely to grow in their discipleship by feeling pressured to meet an assigned task and by feeling guilty when they fail to live up to such presupposed agendas. However, teach people how to read scripture and they are likely to find their own self-motivation to read it more and more.

This method of coaching begs the question, "how exactly do disciples read scripture?" There are, in fact, many ways to read scripture. For example, one can approach it as life's instruction book or owner's manual describing timeless truths. Others may revisit favorite passages that inspire them with feelings of love, forgiveness, hope, etc. These ways can be fine and good. Yet, disciples of Jesus who are given the gift of Holy Spirit in their baptism, read scripture through the lens of participating in Jesus' mission.

To teach someone how to read scripture is to coach them in their responding to Holy Spirit; it's to focus their prescription lens. Holy Spirit who inspired the words of scripture is the same Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, and enlightens Jesus' disciples to participate in his mission of reconciling the world to his Father. So the story found in scripture, of God relating to God's people in order to bring salvation to the world, continues through us today. Scripture does not begin and end with Genesis and Revelation, respectively; it begins and ends with Jesus ushering in God's kingdom by the power of Holy Spirit.

Just as Jesus' disciples of the early first century play a role in God's story within the books of the New Testament, so too Jesus' disciples in the early twenty-first century each play a unique role. In order to discern accurately our role within God's salvation story unfolding in our world, we read scripture as that part of the story which norms the rest of it. By reading scripture, Holy Spirit brings the written words of God's story to life by calling us to participate in Jesus' mission 24/7/365.

In coaching the mark of discipleship called "read", guide disciples in how to read scripture through the lens of participating in Jesus' mission, rather than simply how often or how much to read. For example, if "where I'm at now" is that I don't read scripture regularly on my own, then "one step further for me" may be to read each week the previous Sunday's gospel lesson after hearing the pastor's sermon, and ask myself questions such as:

• What is God doing in this story?
• Why and how?
• What does this tell me about who God is?
• What does this tell me about who God is calling me to be?
• Where do I see a similar scenario in my life, relationships, world, etc.?
• How can I participate in Jesus' mission with respect to those situations?

Once disciples are asking themselves questions like these, they are then likely to be self-motivated to read more scripture to discern Holy Spirit calling them to follow Jesus 24/7/365. When disciples are meeting this covenanted goal and want to go further, coaches may encourage them to add the next Sunday's gospel lesson to their weekly reading, answering these same questions in anticipation of the pastor's sermon. Once reading scripture through this lens feels natural and disciples yearn for more, a possible next step further is to guide them to read a whole section or an entire book so they can see the narrative of God's salvation story developing. (For example, "one step further for me" may be to read the gospel of Mark this month -- about half a chapter per day -- through the lens of participating in Jesus' mission.)

Learning how to read scripture as Jesus' disciples equips us to discern our unique vocation within God's coming kingdom. It gives us the lens through which we can see Jesus living in our midst and ourselves living within God.