One of the primary means by which today’s believer hears God speak is through the reading of God’s word. “Living and active” (Heb 4:12, ESV), God’s word pierces and shapes the heart of the believer. But, what is it about reading Scripture that leads one to either obey or reject what God commands and teaches? Most of us know instinctively (at the least) that we learn something when we read. Yet, it seems that we generally limit this kind of knowing to merely knowing about. In this chapter, I seek…
Read moreOne of the primary means by which today’s believer hears God speak is through the reading of God’s word. “Living and active” (Heb 4:12, ESV), God’s word pierces and shapes the heart of the believer. But, what is it about reading Scripture that leads one to either obey or reject what God commands and teaches? Most of us know instinctively (at the least) that we learn something when we read. Yet, it seems that we generally limit this kind of knowing to merely knowing about. In this chapter, I seek to expound upon Murray Rae’s notion of “attentive listening” by arguing that the believer’s reading of the Bible is a form of listening, and thus an act of knowing that necessitates spiritual formation.
To accomplish my thesis, I first expand upon what is meant by “to know” through building upon the work of Michael Polanyi (Personal Knowledge), Esther Meek (her covenant epistemology), and Dru Johnson (Epistemology and Biblical Theology and Scriptural Knowing). For these thinkers, the act knowing entails more than just knowing about—it necessarily involves listening to an authority, assenting to that authority, and embodying the authority’s teachings. Knowing, then, involves listening to and assenting to the authority of another. I then demonstrate that reading is another form of listening, such that when one reads Scripture, they are listening to God. If one submits to God’s authority, then the proper response is to live out (or embody) his teachings. This embodiment of God’s teachings leads to true knowledge of God (as opposed to mere knowledge about) and his ways, necessitating the believer’s spiritual formation.