The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that Has Abandoned It

by Jamin Goggin

The two rituals of the church that fulfill this aspect of Israel’s narrative are preaching and the public reading of Scripture. In both, the Word of God is proclaimed. Paul encourages Timothy, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13). In both rituals, the people of God are called to stand under the Word and be listeners. The centrality of the public reading of Scripture, and possibly the reason for its absence in so many churches, is that the Scriptures read aloud cannot be controlled or filtered to our liking. In the public reading of Scripture, we hear the raw proclamation of God through his Word and must receive it, in the Spirit, as a Word for us. A public proclamation of Scripture helps to keep the preacher accountable to the Word that was read. But while the public reading of Scripture is straightforward, preaching is less so.