A muddle about reading in small groups:
Do you think about reading God’s word as mainly a science or mostly an art? What’s your underlying vision of the kind of reading that you are expecting within the small groups?
What does it mean to read the word of GOD?
What are the range of responses that you are making space for in your vision of reading as a small group? (e.g. “Now I see …” or “Now I understand …” or “Woe is me …” or “Praise God for his grace ..” or something else?)
How can we make room for a range of responses to God’s word that reflects the range of genres in scripture, and to the various rhetorical functions of the different forms of scripture, or to the different ways that God speaks to his people?
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Photo by BIJAY CHAURASIA, via Wiki CommonsThink genealogy. What kind of reading does a genealogy require?
What sort of response does a genealogy seek?
Could you imagine reading something together that you could not understand, and that being OK, or even that being the point!
Think of some of the Proverbs or think about reading the book of Job together, where God’s conclusions force you to rethink the way that you read all the previous chapters.
Think about listening to Jesus teaching the parables, where the point seems to be that on first hearing these stories cannot be understood!