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.
