Every new Christian is told how important it is to develop the habit of daily Bible reading, and rightly so. But strangely, this commitment to reading the Bible is not as often extended to the worship services of the local church. Fred Craddock says it well: “For all the noise ministers make about the centrality of the Bible in the church, the public reading of Scripture in many places does not support that conviction.”
The public reading of Scripture seems to have been displaced in a great many local churches, perhaps because it is deemed boring or perhaps because the pastor is content to focus on just a handful of verses during a sermon. Yet the apostle Paul specifically told young Pastor Timothy, “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Timothy 4:13). We may see Bible reading as a lesser element in our corporate worship, but God sees it as essential. …
For that reason, we must be as eager to hear the Scripture as to hear the sermon, and we must be as expectant that God will speak to us through the Word as through the message. Rightly do many churches preface their Bible reading with words like, “Listen as I read God’s holy Word.” May our attitude be like Samuel’s: “Speak, for your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:10).
