Leadership Journal

The Bible is really quite wonderful. But I already knew that, didn't I?

A few years ago Bill, a retired pastor and seminary professor, convinced me and Tim, another pastor friend, that it would be a good idea for the three of us to memorize the Book of Revelation and recite it before our church on a Sunday evening. I mention that he was retired because a few days before the event, when I was scrambling to prepare, and fearing that I would make a complete fool of myself in front of a lot of people (1000 people turned out), I was thinking it was easy for him to talk about memorizing a third of a book in the Bible; he had time, for heaven's sake. But I didn't. What was I thinking, I was thinking.

On the night of the event, just before we went out and did this terrifying thing, Bill reminded us that no matter how poorly we might do in the memory department, God was pleased with us and would bless his word. He was right: for two-and-a- half hours all the people, children included, listened as three men simply recited the word of God from the last book of the Bible, beginning to end. The Word was all it says it is: a hammer, a sword, rain, light, truth and bread.

I was stunned, and when my very persuasive friend later suggested we do the same thing with the Book of Mark and then the Book of Romans, we agreed and saw the same results. Each time, the people sat in pregnant silence and listened to the naked word of God, "unplugged" as musicians might say, with no frills, no illustrations, and virtually no visual aids. Alone, it was more than enough.

I'll never forget how whistles and applause erupted spontaneously from the audience when one of us came to the closing lines of Romans 8: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

One of the surprising benefits of all this memorization was the way I was forced to think in new ways about what a biblical text means. It was one thing for me to check the commentaries and pore over the critical apparatus and do the exegesis. It was another thing for me to think of how I would say Scripture if I were its author. Emphasis, pause, and inflection of voice can have a powerful effect on how a passage is heard and understood.

Since then I have been practicing a kind of hermeneutic of speaking, and have been dazzled at the creative impact it has had on how I think about a passage. It isn't always first I think it and then I speak it. Sometimes I have to speak it before I can think it! All this now happens in concert with commentaries, language study, and the rest. Memorization with a view to speaking has become a chief way I meditate on Scripture.

As I have done this I have thought often of something rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the people in his synagogue who complained to him that the liturgy did not ...