The Public Reading Of The Scripture

Because Scripture is the living Word, it should be read with feeling, inflection, and conviction. Many renewing churches have established a lay readers group-people who have as their specific calling and ministry the reading of the Word in worship. This group will meet to rehearse and practice the reading of the Word so that its reading becomes an "event" in worship. Scripture Reading in the Early Church The earliest source of our liturgy of the Word is the Jewish synagogue service, in which any adult male Jew could be invited to proclaim from the Jewish Scripture and to give a commentary. Jesus himself was a forerunner of the Christian lector. In the Nazareth synagogue, he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah, proclaimed a passage from the lectionary, and announced that he was the Spirit-filled servant described by Isaiah (Luke 4:16-22). Another source of Christian proclamation was the activity of first-century missionaries, such as Paul and Barnabas. Because the entire Christian commun…