Bible Attention Deficit Disorder

Hear, Read, Mark, Learn, Inwardly Digest

Second in Advent

Collect: Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Epistle: Romans 15:4-13

Attention Deficit Disorder is a commonly diagnosed problem among school children. No doubt that some children, and even some adults, have trouble paying attention. But is ADD a brain disorder to be treated with Ritalin or a behavioral and developmental problem that usually resolves with maturity?

Thomas Cranmer’s Collect for the second Sunday of Advent addresses a particular form of Attention Deficit Disorder - a deficit of attention to the Bible.

1. The Source of the Scriptures

1.1. Thomas Cranmer was conservative in temperament. When he compiled the Prayer Book, he did not change the prayers of the old church just to change them. He was not one to throw the baby out with the bath water. But he wrote this collect in 1549 and used it in place of the previous collect for the second in Advent.

This prayer is distinctly Protestant because of it focuses on Scripture and asks that all God’s people may understand. The Roman Catholic Church taught that ultimate authority resided in the church, and that the church would tell believers what to believe. The English reformers, like the ones on the European continent, believed that ultimate authority resided in the Scriptures and that all needed to know the Scriptures so they would know what to believe.

1.2. The prayer begins by acknowledging that the Scriptures are a wonderful blessing given by God. “Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written…” We praise and magnify the Lord because he has not left us in the dark to grope after him and truth, but has given us the Scriptures to be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

This blessed God gave us all the holy Scriptures. By all Scriptures, the collect means, as the Articles make clear, the 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament. The Apocryphal books are profitable to read but not for establishing teaching, or doctrine that we must believe. The 66 holy writings are collected together in a book - the Bible. So when we thank the Lord for giving us all the holy Scriptures, we mean all those writings collected in the Bible.

1.3. St. Peter tells us how God gave us all the Scriptures:

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any

private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time
by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1:21,22)

God used men to write the Scriptures. But we do not have the Scriptures because some spiritual men came up with their own insights and interpretations of God, his truth and his will, or the way of salvation. Nor did men choose themselves to write the Scriptures. They were men chosen by God who wrote what they wrote because they were moved by the Holy Spirit. He seldom used the men as secretaries taking down dictation. He did not suppress but used their personalities along with their time in history, their cultural experiences, their particular vocabularies and writing styles. However, in the end the words of Scripture are not the words of men but the words of God. Our blessed Lord gave us the 66 holy writings that are collected in the special book, the Bible.

2. The Reception of the Scriptures

2.1. The Scriptures were given to us by God for our learning. Sometimes we hear that our faith puts too much emphasis on the intellectual and rational. It’s true that some treat the Bible as though it were a textbook, studying to extract information which they can then discuss as though we were in a seminar. No, we read the Bible as God’s speaking to us, leading us to eternal salvation.

But there is no doubt that the Bible is a book of God’s words and that those words are addressed to our understanding. They are given for our learning. The way the reformers used the Bible was to read it and study it till they knew what the Bible says. Our English reformers then preached sermons, wrote the Articles of Religion, and even the Prayer Book, all expressing their understanding of what the Scriptures teach.

2.2. The Bible however is not just for teachers, theologians, bishops, and presbyters. It is for all God’s people. So in the petition of the collect, all we Christians pray that God will save us from Bible attention disorder and enable us to give the Scriptures our full attention.

To emphasize how important it is for us to give our full attention to Scriptures the Collect piles up five verbs about how we should receive the Bible.

• Hear We ask for grace to hear the Scriptures. For most of Christian history the primary way the vast majority of God’s people received God’s Word was by going to church and hearing it read to them. One of the good things that Henry VIII did was to order that a Bible be placed in every parish church and chained down so that people could come and see the Bible, read it for themselves if they were literate, or listen to someone who could read, read it aloud.

We still come to church to hear the Bible read. No church has
more reading of Scripture in its services than the Anglican
churches. This reading is supposed to be a means by which
God’s grace comes into our lives.

But two things are needed. First those who read it to others
should read with understanding, feeling, and clarity. Second
hearers should regard hearing the Word read as a means by
which God will bless us, blessings we will miss if we do not
hear God’s Word read to us.

• Read. When this Collect was put into the Prayer Book few owned a Bible and could read it in private. The private reading and study of the Scriptures was a duty primarily of the church’s scholars and presbyters, though the presbyters themselves were ill prepared profitably to read and study the Scriptures which is why we have the homilies - sermons on important subjects they could read to their congregations. It was only later that Bibles were mass produced and available for purchase. In this Collect we pray that all who have Bibles may have grace from God to read them for themselves.

• Mark. We mark the Scriptures when we give them our full attention. It is very difficult for us not to let our minds wander whether we are listening to the reading in church or reading our own Bibles in private. This has become a bigger problem for us because of television and the internet. We are not used to just listening without accompanying visual stimulation. And, if something does not interest us quickly we move on to something else. Perhaps more than ever we need to pray this Collect that God will help us to mark his Words and pay careful attention to the Scriptures when they are read to or by us.

• Learn. We listen to the Scriptures and pay attention to them so that we can learn what they teach. Hearing the reading of the Scriptures, even paying attention, is not spiritual magic. You don’t get the benefit because you were in the room when the Scriptures were read. We profit from the Scriptures only when we understand what they say. Five times in Psalm 119, the great Psalm about God’s Word, the Psalmist prays “Give me understanding...and I shall keep thy law...that I may learn thy commandments... that I may know thy testimonies...and I shall live...Give me understanding according to thy word.”

• Inwardly Digest. When we ask that we may inwardly digest the Word we are asking that we may understand so that we may spiritually benefit from the Word. When we eat food, it is not immediately beneficial to us. We must digest the food - we must break it down till it is put into a form that can be absorbed and nourish our bodies. So with God’s Word we pray that we may spiritually digest it that it will have its good effects leading us to repentance from our sins, strengthening our faith in Christ, comforting us in our troubles, enabling us to grow in love for and doing of God’s will, making us holy in character and righteous in conduct, enabling us to live as one body in harmony with each other.

3. The Goal of the Scriptures

What is the special benefit of the Scriptures we are asking God to give during Advent?

…that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast, the everlasting hope of everlasting life which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,

The focus of Advent is that Christ who came once in great humility will come again in great majesty. This is the blessed hope of Christians. Christ will come again, put everything right, and grant us the fullness of everlasting life, life with God, life that is beyond the touch of sadness and death, life that will share in the resurrection life of Jesus.

We read and understand this teaching and this promise in Holy Scripture. The Scriptures create in us a firm confidence the Christ will come and our salvation will be complete. So we patiently wait for the coming Day. And we get comfort or encouragement from knowing he will come. Because he will come our lives are not meaningless and futile. Our lives have significance because what we do for the Lord counts for eternity, and, when he comes, we will see how every aspect of our lives has served Christ’s kingdom and led to the glorious end.

The Holy Scriptures and the Holy Supper go together. The Scriptures tell and assure us he will come. He told us that at the Holy Supper we do these things that commemorate his saving death till he comes.

Our Lord will come. The day he will come is much closer than it was 2000 years ago. He makes his promise in the Word. He confirms it at the Table. At the Table we say, “Soon. He will come, and when he does, this Supper will end, and we will sit down with him to eat food and drink wine in perfect harmony with him and one another at the eternal Feast of the Lamb.”