Ancient Christians approach the scriptures

"I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning" (1 Nephi 19:23).

PROVO — There is more to reading the scriptures than, well, just reading them. Kristian Heal told a class on Aug. 19 at BYU's Campus Education Week about three different ways ancient Christians searched the scriptures.

He quoted from a modern theologian, A. M. Farrer, who wrote, "There is a traditional and quite simple form of prayer, or shall we say of private worship, which consists of taking gospel scenes, and living oneself into them."

"Hopefully all of you have done this," Heal said. "That you have engaged with these texts imaginatively. … Once we have closed our eyes and imagined these scenes — imagined ourselves coming up to touch the hems of Christ as he revealed himself in the New World. As we imagine ourselves into scriptural episodes, the power of that scene, as though we were there, can enter into our minds and affect our hearts and our understanding."

Early Christian authors used this approach to scriptures often, Heal said. Ephrem the Syrian, a poet and theologian who died in A.D. 373 wrote about the act of reading and the act of imagination:

"With the eye of my mind I gazed upon Paradise. My tongue read the story's outward narrative, while my mind took wing and soared upward in awe."

"We can imagine him doing this," Heal said, "closing his eyes, thinking through, imagining himself into the scriptural story."

Another way to read the scriptures, is to realize that the righteous people in the Bible were, in fact, real. And when we follow their example, it is as if we are joining them in a journey. They are like guides on our way. "As we read the scriptures, as we engage with these small lessons, we, as it were, join the fair company of the righteous, of the just," Heal said.

Narsai of Edessa, a Syriac Christian who died in A.D. 503, wrote "The love of the just ones called me to set out on the path of the just, and to journey, in the mind, on the clear road of their ways of life. Their love enticed me, like a child, towards instruction, saying: 'Get up lazy one, set out in the company of the diligent.'"

The third way of reading the scriptures — and in particular the Old Testament — is to find a particular hidden message. Heal used the story of Moses' veil (Exodus 34:29-35) to explain the concept: