Christ-centered Community Part 4: Engaging the Scriptures in Community
Why competency in scriptural interpretation and application as a community is a better marker of success than how many people turn up on Sundays and how much they tithe
What to expect here
We’re getting closer to the end of my ramblings on what Christ-centered community is and how we can go about seeing our churches become places where the saints thrive and flourish. Here, I’ll be talking about competency in scriptural interpretation and application as a community and how that should matter way more than it seems to in many churches.
A quick recap
As the title suggests, this is part 4 of my focus on the church, or Christ-centered community. You can read the previous entries below:
Part 2: Belonging in family (equality in siblinghood)
Part 3: Empowerment in our shared priesthood (and why that was always God’s plan for each of us)
As a reminder, I define Christ-centered community as a group of diverse but equal individuals, interdependent on one another and united in love by the pursuit of the shared, transcendent purpose of living out the gospel of Jesus.
Where Christ-centered community exists, these things should be true of its members:
Belonging in family
Empowerment in our shared priesthood
Competency in scriptural interpretation and application
Engagement in spiritual gifting
Growth in maturity
In this part, we are exploring competency in scriptural interpretation and application.
This one should be obvious
I’m not going to spend a lot of space arguing that knowing the scriptures is a good thing, as I can’t imagine many out there who say otherwise, at least not out loud. But, even the most narrow-minded on this issue would likely agree that part of the goal of discipleship for all believers is scriptural knowledge at the very least, and some semblance of hermeneutical skill, more ideally.
However, our current structures don’t seem to bring this desire to fruition very well.1 But I don’t think this should surprise us because our church structures are not usually built for the body to thrive without the teaching of a singular pastor. Rather, they largely depend on an expert actively working to exposit the scriptures while the rest passively receive the fruits of their labor with little need for mutual participation and engagement. We rarely encourage reading in groups, asking questions, challenging our presuppositions, and seeking answers from God together.
There is very little engagement with the teachings of the Bible as a community in many of these church models. Contrast this with what Jesus and Paul created with their approaches to teaching, and we have a noticeable difference when we look at the learning contexts of churches today. Andrew D. Clarke describes the outcomes of the method of engagement employed by Jesus and Paul and witnessed by the New Testament authors:
“Across the New Testament corpus, a number of overlapping semantic domains is used with notable frequency [to describe these faith communities]. Toghether, they embrace notions of discussing, discerning, exploring, disputing, arguing, quarrelling, questioning, and reasoning. They certainly surface on occasions of internal doubt and reflection, that is in reference to the turning over of one’s own thoughts; but they also arise in contexts of open, even animated, community debate.”2
Both Jesus and Paul, and the rest of the New Testament authors seem to welcome critical engagement throughout their teaching, and in this context the early church was able to flourish. It wasn’t always pretty, and sometimes it may have gotten a bit uncomfortable (Paul opposing Peter in Gal 2:11-14), but the familial bond was foundational to these sorts of interactions. I wonder, though, do we ever see this sort of environment in our contexts today?
Pastor-centric models as a deterrent to communal engagement of the scriptures
Just think about your church experience. Many of our structures and models suggest that scriptural knowledge predominantly resides in one person, and the body is dependent on transmission of that knowledge from an expert. Churches that are pastor-centric do not usually result in the whole body growing in learning and living out the scriptures together.
By “pastor-centric,” I mean churches where the bulk of ministry is built around an often-singular, sole, or senior leader. This person is a vocational or professional (and paid) leader who is trained in teaching and preaching. These churches can tend toward being hierarchical (even if they try not to be), where the pastor functions as a C.E.O. tasked with oversight, vision-casting, teaching, growth, inspiration, etc. of the entire congregation. The pastor is typically the one who speaks first and last (and most), decides when worship and prayer happen, determines the order or flow of the service, prays publicly, and has the final say in matters of theology. Sometimes a worship or other pastor may do some of these things, but the pastor can override or change any of that in a moment. By-laws and constitutions at these churches tend to heavily describe the role of pastor and rarely mention the role of the broader body. The goals, implicit and explicit, revolve around numbers (membership, baptisms, salvations, tithes, etc.) as the primary means of measuring success.
I would strongly advocate for a body-centric model, where the church grows as each member does, or a relative critical mass of people move into maturity and assume functions based on Spirit-gifting. Ministry morphs around the gifts of the gathered saints as the body grows. Numerical growth can remain a metric for success, but broadens to include maturation and Christlikeness of individuals and groups, along with other factors I’ve mentioned in this series of posts and ones to come. In fact, maturity and Christlikeness supercede traditional numbers as indicators of success.
There are broad discipleship efforts in most churches today, but their effect is such that individual members rarely, if ever, match the level of impact and importance (real or perceived) of the pastoral leader, no matter how much they excel in these programmes. And it is an incredibly rare exception when ministry is then built around the the ones who are discipled instead of the one who is “doing the discipling.”
For the record, we are all disciples of Jesus, not of our pastors and teachers. Those who teach are disciples alongside the rest of us. Distinctions like teacher/student, discipler/disciple, clergy/laity, father/child, etc., are contrary to the language and emphasis of the New Testament, where Spirit-filled saints all sit at the feet of Jesus together as brothers and sisters. Language and modeling reflect our values, so if your church doesn’t say that the whole community is important in these ways AND you don’t see that it actually does matter through action, it probably doesn’t.
But what would become of our congregations of believers if we all studied the scriptures together, actively growing in knowledge and application individually and collectively rather than only passively listening to an expert?
And how often do we explore the scriptures as a community?
Acts 17 gives us a picture of what this could look like. Paul and Silas preach in the synagogues in Thessalonica, and the story tells us some of the Jews were persuaded, along with a fair amount of Greek men and women. However, some of the Jews stir up a mob, driving Paul and Silas to Berea, where we get this:
10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 Now these people were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. 12 Therefore, many of them believed, along with a significant number of prominent Greek women and men. (Acts 17:10-12, NASB)
As the gospel continues to spread to the Gentiles, this mention of the Berean believers takes place inside a larger narrative where how to handle the scriptures as a community isn’t exactly the point. But Luke goes out of his way to explain how these Bereans were different, and it has to do with their eagerness to be actively involved in learning about this message of Jesus through the scriptures, together. Clarke says, the description of the Bereans “suggests a context of communal engagement—a pouring over the Scriptures together” where lengthy examination and questioning exist.3 And we are given a description of a response that is worth emulating: eager reception of the gospel message coupled with critical and communal engagement to find the truth.
We don’t see any indication in this story that Paul and Silas are offended by the Bereans checking “to see whether these things were so.” In fact, Paul’s writings in other places leave us to assume his motivations are not that he be seen as some expert for his own sake, but simply that the gospel takes root and transforms communities (cf. Phil 1:12-20, 1 Cor 3:1-15, Col 1:24-29, etc.).
Learning from the scriptures together should leave space for asking questions, raising concerns, and even disagreeing with one another. It’s often in the context of such engagement that we arrive at better conclusions—ones that are tested across a diversity of introspective minds all seeking to hear from God together. And there is a fine line between discussion and arguing combatively, though we should not allow fear of dissent to keep us from leveraging the potential insights to be gained from the saints in our communities.4 We are family together, and we belong to this group because of the common bond of the Holy Spirit.
This is the way of the early church
Early Christian communities were also birthed in group-oriented cultures. This ideology made the adoption of familial language and becoming sisters and brothers more natural, perhaps, than for many of us today—though, this reality was quite radical in who was included among the family of God (e.g. Gentiles, women, slaves, etc.) to the early church. But belonging to a group was at the front of the minds of most people in the Ancient Mediterranean context.5
Take a look at the recipients of some of the letters in the early church:
“To the churches of Galatia” (Gal 1:2)
“To the saints who are at Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph 1:1)
“To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who are at Colossae” (Col 1:2)
“To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling,” (1 Cor 1:2)
“To the church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are throughout Achaia” (2 Cor 1:1)
“To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons” (Phil 1:1)
“To those who reside as strangers, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen…” (1 Pet 1:1)
They were written to the whole body of believers in those areas. In fact, Philippians is the only one that mentions leaders (and it’s to a plurality of them!).6 The scriptures were meant for the entire body, and they were delivered in a way that invited the saints and brothers and sisters in Christ to discover what the Spirit wanted them to be in community.
It’s fitting that a common practice in the early church was listening to epistles that were read aloud together, in smaller groups that regularly met in homes where they discussed and wrestled with the meaning and application of the apostles’ words. The noble-mindedness of the Berean church is not credited to their pastor (and there would have probably been more than one, by the way) or even to the excellence of Paul’s teaching, but to the active pursuit of knowledge of Christ through the “pouring over” the scriptures by the whole community. That provides a rather profound redefinition of what success should be in Christ-centered community.
But how do we measure success today?
Numbers, mostly, if not exclusively. How many baptisms, how many boxes checked on decision cards, how many new members? In one way or another, success in most cases in the church comes down to numbers. And that’s a tricky measure to rely on because, if numbers are the only (or primary) indicator of success, the church is failing in many parts of the Western world. Even here in Aotearoa New Zealand, numbers indicate that something isn’t working with the way we are doing church.7 And let’s face it, it’s easier to measure numbers than maturity or abstract concepts like scriptural knowledge. But I think we owe it to ourselves to expand our creativity not only in how we talk about success, but also the communal steps we take to get there.
At various churches I have been to, Christa (my partner) and I have worked to do how-to-study-the-scriptures groups, where we unpack major themes in the Bible, talk about how to read the diverse genres, and explore the covenants, among other things (like watching and discussing BibleProject videos along with reading corresponding passages of scripture together). We’ve done these in workshops and over multiple weeks in various studies. But, there needs to be broad buy-in and intent to apply these truths regularly so that they become common practice among the community. In other words, if the leadership of a church does not make a concerted effort to equip the congregation in these ways, it’s probably not going to happen. And we’ve seen such efforts lose steam and fizzle out over time for this very reason. It’s hard to change the regular flows of church gatherings, and most Sunday morning structures are built with low expectations of people.
If 90 minutes on a Sunday is the most we can expect of the vast majority of the church, then the fact is we just won’t grow very much. You can’t easily become family in that time, and you can’t grow into deep knowledge of God’s word as a community either. Becoming aware of and proficient in your gifting and calling are unlikely in that space as well, much less growing into maturity and Christlikeness. Becoming a community that interacts with one another, gives and receives to one another, unpacks the scriptures in groups, discerns the Spirit corporately, and truly becomes a family takes time and effort. Most churches are not built that way, and changing is inefficient and scary.
What could success look like?
As much as I advocate for change, I often find it hard to answer the question, “What would the church look like if it did change in these ways?” I’ve had a handful of these conversations recently, where people have asked me that exact question. My response has been, “That’s a great question for our entire local church!” Because we should be seeking the Spirit together to that end. Most churches leave the task of success for the church to an individual to inspire and cultivate growth in the body. And the pastor is left to push for people to volunteer for tasks they weren’t invited to create, so buy-in is often obligatory rather than exciting. This approach is undignifying to the body of believers who each bear the image of God and are entrusted with the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit and should be a part of corporate activity that leads to growth.
As it pertains to scriptural competency, here are some questions that could shed light on how your community is doing:
Is there regular time for your community to talk about the scriptures together?
Does more than one person speak during your gatherings about what the Bible says?
Would there be broad buy-in for your church to spend time (beyond a normal gathering) having conversations about passages of scripture together?
Is there ever dedicated, public space for reflection, questions, or even push-back to sermons or teaching times?
If you’re a teacher or pastor, do you ask others in your community to teach you?
Do you leave your gatherings, having heard someone teach, and think, “I can do that.”
What is your church known for? How great the teacher is, or how “noble-minded” the body is?
Does your community try new ways of studying the scriptures that invite others into the process of hearing from God?
Does your church create space for people to learn how to teach?
When is the last time someone at your church taught from the scriptures in a non-sermon context (art, dance, or something else)?
The next part of this series will talk about engagement in spiritual gifting, then, I’ll wrap up by exploring the call to maturity we all also share. These areas provide further markers of success for a congregation. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, especially where you are seeing these things happen in creative ways. Leave a comment if something comes to mind!
The American Bible Society conducts an annual assessment of Bible use and engagement among Americans in their State of the Bible, and their findings show significant decline (around 11%) since 2021 among adults reading the Bible at least a few times each year, which is a pretty low bar. Just less than a quarter of American adults read the Bible at least once a week outside of church. I suspect that once-a-week Bible reading does not often translate to competency in scriptural interpretation and application. And while this study is in the US, where there is more of a cultural Christianity than the U.K. and New Zealand (places I’ve lived since), I think it is indicative of broader, global trends, even in places that may be considered post-Christian, and Western. Regular engagement with the scriptures is seemingly not a priority beyond Sunday gatherings, even among consistent churchgoers. Because this is true for individuals, it is also likely true for churches as groups.
American Bible Society. “State of the Bible USA Edition,” 2023. Accessed July 13, 2023. https://1s712.americanbible.org/state-of-the-bible/stateofthebible/State_of_the_bible-2023.pdf., 6-7.
Clarke, Andrew D. The Church as a Learning Community. Kindle. Edited by A. T. B. McGowan. Engaging Ecclesiology Papers from the Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference 2021. Cascade Books, 2023. 162.
Clarke, The Church as a Learning Community. 164.
I’ll talk more in a future post about how maturity in Christ can serve to assuage this fear. A basis for the mature believer, though is a solid foundation of scriptural knowledge and application.
See my previous post on Christ-centered Community Part 2: Belonging in Family.
Obviously, this list excludes the letters to Timothy and Titus (along with Philemon), as these letters seem to be addressing specific, contextual issues in the early churches at Ephesus and Crete, respectively. While they deal with important issues that are relevant to authority (or at least our contemporary fascination with this term), women in the church, eldership (the meaning of this term, along with overseers and deacons as seen in the Philippian address, and pastor, more broadly is worth some examination for another day), doctrine, etc., their historical context makes them unique when it comes to addressing the body as a whole. They were necessary given issues at the time and are well worth meticulous engagement, though thorough contextualization is a must. Regardless, there are far more instances of communal address in the scriptures than to individual leaders among or in specific churches. For more on the complexities surrounding the Timothy letters, see Marg Mowczko and contributors on Patheos.
In New Zealand, there’s a growing trend of people who say they have no religion—this has been reflected across denominations, including NZ Baptists, who I affiliate with. While numbers are considerably higher in the US, there is still a downward trend there as well. Here are some insightful numbers on American church (and synagogue) membership over the last 30ish years. Similar decreases in Christian affiliation have happened in the UK as well.
As with your previous posts in this series, this was very well done! Thanks for this, Matt!
I've always been struck by how Paul's comment seemingly takes for granted that the believers in Rome are, "full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another" (Rom 15:14). This makes explicit your point that the whole body is to be engaged with shoring up one another in the faith, rather than just a talking head for a brief time on Sunday mornings. Of course, we need keen insights and convincing application drawn from careful exegesis by those skilled to do so. The prophetic voice of some who are gifted to proclaim the mind of God in the power of the Spirit is not to be taken lightly! But, the magnitude of weight the church (esp. in America) puts on this role is way out of balance from the emphasis Scripture puts on the whole body of believers. Your post really does move the scales in the right direction!