Last Sunday I was caught in the middle of an interesting situational irony. Before his sermon our pastor announced that he would not read from the Scriptures that day because, he said, his text was such a "familiar" passage. This struck me as ironic because there is so much talk in the evangelical Protestant world about the Bible being the sole, authoritative foundation for the Christian faith and yet we can simply decide not to read it when we gather together. The canon of the New Testament was developed in order to determine what should be read in public worship, and has been read in public Christian worship since the most ancient times. In the early second century, Justin Martyr, in his First Apology (ch. 67), describes the practice of publicly reading the Scripture: "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. . . ." It seems, then, that there wasn't simply a brief reading to be used as a basis for a sermon, but rather a good chunk of Scripture was read—as long as time permitted. That seems a far cry from simply leaving out the reading because it is familiar.
Compounding the irony is the fact that Catholics are often the subject of evangelical polemics accusing them of ignoring the Bible or prohibiting the faithful from reading the Bible at all. In actuality, Catholics use the Bible in public worship far more than any evangelical church I have attended. During weekday masses, there are two readings: one from the Old Testament or an epistle, and a Gospel reading. On Sundays there are three: Old Testament, epistle, and a Gospel. Every day a responsive reading of a Psalm is sung or said. Again, a far cry from simply choosing not to read the Bible.
And not only does the mass contain more readings from Scripture than most evangelical worship, but many of the prayers in the liturgy, at least in part, come directly from the Bible. The invocation "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" comes from Christ's commission to baptize found at the end of Matthew's Gospel. The priest's greeting to the people, "The grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you," can be found at the beginning of nearly every single letter that Paul wrote. On Sundays and solemnities, the hymn "Glory to God in the highest" echoes the angels' greeting to the shepherds heralding the birth of Our Lord. In the Eucharistic prayer, the Sanctus comes from the book of Revelation and the account of Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Then, of course, there are the words of Christ himself recorded in the synoptic Gospels and St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians: This is my Body. This is my Blood.
How, then, are we evangelicals justified in claiming the Bible alone as our final authority in matters of faith when we simply decide not to read it? Can we still claim to revere the Bible when we reduce it to a text for study and from which to pull sermon material yet those who worship on the other side of the Tiber use it throughout their liturgy? I think evangelicals should take a cue from the Church who actually told us which Scriptures belong in the Bible in the first place. We should give up the idea that we revere the Bible more than the Catholics do and actually start using the thing.
