Scripture Engagement

I was recently at a men’s breakfast where the speaker announced that Moses' (not Charlton Heston, btw) main problem was that he didn’t know who he was, and that if we don’t know who we are we won’t be able to serve God either. I doubt that was the case, at least with Moses. When he says this to God: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Exodus 3:11 ( ESV ) he is using a rhetorical question. It means, roughly speaking, ‘I am not the one to go and… ’. It’s not that he didn’t know who he was, but that he thought he wasn’t worthy. Reading chapters 1-2 would have helped the speaker know that Moses, though he had grown up in the royal household of the Pharaoh of Egypt, knew he was a Hebrew, and had killed an Egyptian. Our problem is that we read the Bible through the lens of modern psychology, Freud in particular. If only we would get into the Hebrew mindset rather than Freud’s, we would do much better interpreting the Bible.

Recently we visited a church and tried to run a meeting without printed words, or rather a meeting with oral worship. Here's some advice on how to run such a gathering: Sing songs that everyone knows without printed or projected words Any videos used need to have audio as well as subtitles, or better still no text or subtitles for the audio Bible stories are told from the heart - not memorised from a Bible but crafted naturally (try listening to several audio versions, or watching several videos to help you remember all the points, then retell it in your own way and record yourself on your smart phone as you do so) Get people to retell the story in their own way in pairs (if someone is really talented at this they might volunteer to tell it to the whole group?) Ask people who they are planning to tell the story to by the next gathering The sermon doesn't use a PowerPoint, or if it does make sure you don't have any words in it If you're in a liturgical church