Book Club, Old School

Mark your calendars and join Incarnation mid-week next Wednesday (Feb. 9) for an evening of exploring the Bible together.  We’ll meet at 7:30 p.m. at the Witts (41 W. 72nd, 14A).  One Wednesday evening a month we’re devoting to reading and talking about Scripture together.  You might call it a good old-fashioned “Bible study.”  On the other hand, you might not.  Incarnation is a community committed to reading Scripture as a way of fostering curiosity and wonder and delight.  So we’ll talk about Jesus in Matthew’s gospel.  Come with absolutely any questions you want to explore together.

Some of you may be wary of Bible reading or Bible study.  Maybe you associate it with overly conservative churches.  Maybe you’ve tried to read the Bible in the past and found yourself stymied for one reason or another.  We hope that on Sundays you’re finding that Scripture can be alive and instructive and energizing.  Our ongoing conversation about Scripture is one of the most important features of our lives together.  These sacred and life-giving texts are God’s gift to the church.  So we reflect our gratitude for this gift by arguing and wrestling and laughing and wondering over these Bible texts.

In the passage we’ll be reading this weekend (Matthew 5:17-20), Jesus invites us to a Jewish way of life.  In his words, we’re called to a righteousness that “exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.”  Rabbinic Judaism was Judaism as practiced in synagogues and involved the continual reading and study of the Hebrew Bible.  Jesus expects us as his followers to continue this Scripture-centered way of life.  And he calls us to a way of living with Scripture that goes beyond just arguing about its meaning.  We’re to engage in an ongoing conversation about Scripture so that our lives become an active and energetic way of serving and loving others in Jesus’ name.

Hope to see you Sunday and Wednesday, Jared.