'Reading the holy Scriptures is a duty expressly commanded us': encouraging the confident reading of Scripture

Reading and hearing the word of God are but the several circumstances of the same duty: instrumental especially to faith, but consequently to all other graces of the spirit ... The Scriptures read are the same thing to us which the same doctrine was when it was preached by the disciples of our blessed Lord, and we are to learn of either with the same dispositions ... The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher in the world, and the words of Scripture the best sermons. All the doctrine of salvation is plainly set down there, that the most unlearned person, by hearing it read, may understand all his duty ... The wit of man cannot more plainly tell us our duty, or more fully, than the Holy Ghost hath done already. Good sermons and good books are of excellent use; but yet they can serve no other end but that we practice the plain doctrines of Scripture ... Set apart some portion of thy time, according to the opportunities of thy calling and necessary employment, for the reading of Holy Scriptures; and, if it be possible, every day read or hear some of it read: you are sure that book teaches all truth, commands all holiness, and promises all happiness.

Jeremy Taylor's words from Holy Living came to mind when reading a powerful article entitled 'Loving the Bible', on the Covenant site, by Barbara White, a priest in TEC:

Just as there is no such thing as a solitary Christian, there is no such thing as a Christian who is not steeped, formed, and shaped by the Word of God. Holy Scripture must be the air we breathe and the water in which we swim. It is the soil out of which our liturgy, theology, and mission need to grow. It is the primary way that we who desire to be disciples of Jesus Christ come to encounter him, not as an artifact of history, but as the risen, living, and reigning Son of God.

This confidence in Scripture, and unembarrassed affirmation that it is "the primary way that we who desire to be disciples of Jesus Christ come to encounter him", is deeply, truly, profoundly Anglican. Taylor's words - the words of a committed Laudian - certainly testify to this. No revivalist, deeply committed to the liturgy and divine service, regarding "The holy communion, or supper of the Lord, [as] the most sacred, mysterious, and useful conjugation of secret and holy things and duties in the religion", Taylor nevertheless declared that "reading the holy Scriptures is a duty expressly commanded us", for "nothing else is the word of God that we know of by any certain instrument".

I invoke Taylor here because the piety he sought to encourage has, in many ways, defined the Anglican character over centuries: eirenic, modest, cautious about zeal, critiquing Enthusiasm, emphasising the duties of the Christian. Such piety, however, is - Taylor explicitly asserts - to be necessarily rooted in regular reading of Scripture: for without this, our duties towards God and neighbour can cease to be rooted in "the doctrine of salvation ... plainly set down" in Scripture, and then whither, devoid of true nourishment. That personal reading of Scripture is often not the practice of Anglicans in North Atlantic societies, is, as White states, something that must be acknowledged and addressed:

We have a Bible-reading problem in American Christianity. Too many mainline churches, preachers, and teachers ignore the Bible at best, or treat it as something awkward, embarrassing, or as a “text of terror.”

This state of affairs is no minor matter.  It can undermine Christian life, witness, and ministry for, in Taylor's words, "The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher in the world, and the words of Scripture the best sermons". It also fundamentally contradicts the vision of the Christian life set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.

The very purpose of Morning and Evening Prayer, according to Cranmer, is to enable "often reading and meditation in God's Word". In the Litany, we petition that bishops and clergy would be granted "true knowledge and understanding of thy Word". We pray also in the Litany that all Christians would "hear meekly thy Word, and ... receive it with pure affection", and that we all might have grace "to amend our lives according to thy holy Word". At the Holy Communion, we again petition that bishops and clergy would "set forth thy true and lively Word", and that "all thy People ... may hear and receive thy holy Word". And, of course, at the ordination of priests, the newly-ordained receive the holy Scriptures with the primary charge to "preach the Word of God". (This, by the way, remains the primary charge in the rite for the ordination of priests in, for example, TEC's BCP 1979.)

Reading and hearing the Scriptures, then, is fundamental to the Prayer Book's vision of what it is to be the Church and of what it is to be Christian. The personal reading of Scripture both flows from and is ordered towards the corporate hearing of Scripture in its reading and exposition in divine service. We are drawn to drink more deeply from the Scriptures through corporate hearing and exposition; through personal reading of the Scriptures our hearts, minds, and souls are prepared for corporate reading and exposition. 

... you are sure that book teaches all truth, commands all holiness, and promises all happiness.

Mindful of the current state of Anglicanism in North Atlantic societies, when countless initiatives, projects, programs, and statements have (entirely predictably) failed to have had any meaningful impact on the life of the churches - never mind the cultures in which we live, minister, and witness - perhaps we might set aside all those various schemes beloved of ecclesiastical bureaucrats, and have one, clear, simple, confident focus within Anglican and Episcopal churches over the next generation: to encourage the personal reading of the Scriptures. No, it would not in any way be a quick-fix. It would not quickly undo decades of teaching which undermined confidence in the Faith, Scriptures, and Creeds. Nor it would not in any way be an automatic answer to vast cultural and social challenges. But it would enrich our confession and witness, rooting both more fully, more confidently in holy Scripture, in that which is "God's Word written".

In the beautiful words of the homily 'A Fruitful exhortation to the reading and knowledge of Holy Scripture':

Let us hear, read, and know these holy rules, injunctions, and statutes of our Christian religion, and upon that we have made profession to God at our baptism. Let us with fear and reverence lay up (in the chest of our hearts) these necessary and fruitful lessons. Let us night and day muse, and have meditation and contemplation in them. Let us ruminate, and (as it were) chew the cud, that we may have the sweet juice, spiritual effect, marrow, honey, kernel, taste, comfort and consolation of them.