The following excerpts are from a book by Dr. M. Robert Mulholland Jr. – Shaped by the Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation. I highly recommend this book.
“We have a deeply ingrained way of reading in which we are the masters of the material we read. We come to a text with our own agenda firmly in place, perhaps not always consciously, but usually subconsciously. If what we start to read does not fairly quickly begin to adapt itself to our agenda, we usually lay it aside and look for something that does. When what we are reading does adapt itself to our agenda, we then exercise control over it by grasping it with our mind. … This mode of reading is detrimental to the role of Scripture…the role of Scripture in spiritual for-mation is not so much a body of information, a technique, a method, a model, as it is a mode of being in relationship with God…”
I love charts! They help me wrap my head around a subject.
| Seeks to cover as much as possible | Focuses on small portions |
| A linear process | An in-depth process |
| Seeks to master the text | Allows the text to master us |
| The text as an object to use | The text as a subject that shapes us |
| Analytical, critical, and judgmental approach | Humble, detached, willing, loving approach |
| Problem-solving mentality | Openness to mystery |
The formational approach [to reading Scripture] is a radical alternative to our normal orientation to reading and study. Let’s look at some of the balancing characteristics of reading for formation versus reading for information.First, in contrast to reading for information, the object [of formational reading] is not to cover as much as possible as quickly as possible; reading for formation avoids quantifying the amount of reading in any sort of way. You are concerned with quality of reading, not quantity. You may find yourself in a “holding pattern” on just one sentence or one paragraph or perhaps as much as a whole page, but probably never more than that. You are not concerned with getting through the book. So what if it takes you a year, two years, five years to get through the book? That is not the point. The point is meeting God in the text.
Perhaps there are some things grating inside you right now. You may be saying, “That’s not reading! I’ve got this book; I’ve got to get through it.” Do you ever find yourself thumbing through a book to see how many pages are left in the chapter you are reading? This may be a symptom of informational reading. Or better, you find yourself stopping and going back and reflecting, perhaps dropping back a paragraph or maybe even a whole chapter and saying, “Hey, I missed something here. There are deeper levels of meaning here, and I have to slow down and meditate on them.” This indicates that you may have begun to move into formational reading.
Second, although informational reading is linear, trying to move quickly over the surface of the text, formational reading is in depth. You seek to allow the passage to open to you its deeper dimensions, its multiple layers of meaning. At the same time, you seek to allow the text to probe deeper levels of your being, disclose deeper dimensions of your flawed “word,” disturb the foundations of your false self. Instead of rushing on to the next sentence, paragraph, or chapter, you seek to allow the text to begin to become that intrusion of the Word of God into our life, to address you, to encounter you at deeper levels of your being. If you don’t take time like this with a text, the Word cannot encounter you in it; the Word of God cannot form you through it.
What happens in personal relationships if, as you see people coming toward you, you begin walking toward them talking steadily as you approach, come up to them, shakes their hands, and continue on, talking the whole time? Has there been any address from them? This is just what we tend to do with reading material. We pick up the book, and our minds immediately start informing that text. We go all the way through the text telling it what we want it to say to us. When we finish we say, “That was a great book” or “That was a lousy book.” The book has never really had a chance to address you.
Third, in informational reading, we seek to grasp the control, to master the text. I suspect you already see what the third point is in formational reading: It is to allow the text to master you. In reading the Bible, this means we come to the text with an openness to hear, to receive, to respond, to be a servant of the Word rather than a master of the text. Such openness requires an abandonment of the false self and its habitual temptation to control the text for its own purposes.
Fourth, instead of the text being an object we control and manipulate according to our own insight and purposes, the text becomes the subject of the reading relationship; we are the object that is shaped by the text. With respect to biblical reading, we willingly stand before the text and await its address, ready for the Word to exercise control over the “word” we are. This is one reason formational reading cannot be quantified. It requires waiting before the text. You have to take time with it in order to hear what it says.
[Excerpt from Shaped by the Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation, Chapter 5, Copyright © 2000 M. Robert Mulholland Jr, revised edition published in 2000 by Upper Room Books, Nashville
For more on this book and others – visit http://www.swordofthespirit.net/bulwark/bible-study3.htm
