Understanding the Bible Through the Church

Secondly, as stated in the statement of the Moscow Conference, "we cognize, receive and perceive the Holy Scriptures through the Church and in the Church." Our approach to the Bible should not only be obedient, but also ecclesiastical.

It is the Church that tells us what the Holy Scriptures consist of. This or that book is not part of the Holy Scriptures because there is evidence regarding its authorship and the year of its writing. If it were suddenly proved, for example, that the Fourth Gospel was not actually written by the holy Evangelist John, the most beloved disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, this would not change the fact that we, the Orthodox, recognize the Fourth Gospel as part of Holy Scripture. Why? Because the Gospel of John is accepted by the Church and in the Church.

It is the Church that tells us what the Holy Scriptures are, just as it is the Church that tells us how the Holy Scriptures are to be understood. Meeting an Ethiopian, who was reading the Old Testament in his chariot, the holy Apostle Philip asked him: "Do you understand what you read?" (Acts 8:30-31). We are all in the condition of this Ethiopian. The words of the Holy Scriptures are not always understandable without explanation God speaks directly to the heart of each of us when we read the Bible: the reading of the Holy Scriptures, as St. Tikhon says, is a personal conversation of each of us with Christ. But we also need guidance. And our guide is the Mother Church. We make full use of our own minds with the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit; we make full use of the discoveries of modern Bible scholars, but we always subordinate private opinion, whether our own or the opinion of scholars, to the conciliar centuries-old experience of the Holy Church.

The essence of this Orthodox point of view is reflected in the question to the catechumen, in the rite of receiving him into the bosom of the Church. In Russian practice: "Do you recognize that the Holy Scriptures must be accepted and interpreted in accordance with the faith handed down to us by the Holy Fathers, which our Mother, the Holy Orthodox Church, has always preserved and preserves to this day?"

Reading the Bible should be personal, but we should not feel isolated from each other, as individuals, as solitary Christians. We read as members of the family, the family of the Universal Orthodox Church. When we read the Holy Scriptures, we do not say "I," but "we." We read in fellowship with all the other members of the Body of Christ in all parts of the world and at all times. The criterion for understanding the meaning of Holy Scripture is the reason of the Church. The Bible is a book of the Holy Church.

Where should we begin in order to discover the teaching of the Church? The first step is to find out how the Holy Scriptures are used in worship. How, in particular, are Bible readings chosen for various holidays? We must also turn to the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church and take into account their interpretation of the Bible. Thus, the reading of Holy Scripture by the Orthodox bears both a liturgical and a patristic character.

As an example of what the liturgical method of interpreting Scripture consists of, guided by the way it is used during church feasts, let us consider the paremia - readings from the Old Testament that are based on the vespers of the feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos - March 25 (April 7 in the civil calendar). There are three of them: 1) from the Book of Genesis, 28:10-17 - Jacob's dream about a ladder ascending from earth to heaven; 2) from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, 43:27 - 44:4 - the prophet's vision of the Jerusalem sanctuary with closed gates, through which no one except the prince can pass; 3) from Proverbs 9:1-11 - beginning with the words: "Wisdom has built herself a house."

All these Old Testament texts chosen for the services of March 25 (April 7) and other feasts of the Mother of God should be understood as prophecies about the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ from the Virgin. The Most Holy Virgin Mary is the ladder of Jacob, who gave flesh to the incarnate God, Who entered our human world. The Most Holy Virgin Mary - the closed gates; She is the only woman who conceived in virginity and remained immaculate. The Most Holy Virgin Mary is the house which Christ "the Wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24) accepts as a dwelling place. If we trace in this way how the readings for the various feasts are selected, we reveal the versatility of the biblical interpretation, through the comparison of images and examples that are not at all obvious at the first reading.

Let us take as another example the Vespers of Great Saturday, which many centuries ago was the first part of the Paschal All-Night Vigil. It contains at least 15 readings from the Old Testament. Unfortunately, in very many churches most of them are omitted, and therefore the people of God are deprived of the opportunity to be satiated with their Biblical meaning. These 15 paremias, one after the other, reveal to us the entire plan of sacred history, at the same time revealing the deep meaning of the resurrection of Christ. The first of the readings, from Genesis 1:1-13, is about the first three days of Creation. The Resurrection of Christ is a new Creation. The fourth reading is the entire book of the holy prophet Jonah, in which it is described how the prophet was in the belly of the whale for three days, which anticipates the three-day resurrection of Christ (compare: Matt. 12:40). The sixth reading tells of the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 13:20-15:19), which heralds Christ's new Passover transition from death to life (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:7, 10:1-4). The last reading is the story of the three holy youths thrown into a fiery furnace (Dan. 3), another prototype of Christ's resurrection from the tomb.

Such is the effect of the conciliar reading of Holy Scripture in the Church and together with the Church. Studying the Old Testament in parallel with the liturgics of the Holy Church and resorting to the works of the Holy Fathers, we everywhere discover new guiding signs leading us to the knowledge of the great mysteries surrounding the Lord Jesus Christ and His Most-Pure Mother. By reading the Old Testament in comparison with the New and the New Testament in comparison with the Old (which is indicated by our church calendar), we discover the unity of Holy Scripture.

In parish Bible study circles, it is helpful to assign someone a special activity: to find out on which feasts a particular passage from the Old or New Testament is read during worship. You could then discuss together why this particular passage was chosen. Other members of the group can be given an assignment on the works of the Holy Fathers of the Church, using primarily the sermons and teachings of St. John Chrysostom. But you should remember that you will need to be diligent in your search before you find what you are looking for. The Holy Fathers of the Church addressed people of a different time, and one must read them with the ability to delve into their epoch. Archpriest George Florovsky used to say that modern Orthodox Christians need to acquire a patristic way of thinking. And in order to achieve this, we must penetrate deeper than the superficial understanding of the words of the Holy Fathers into the very essence of their inner meaning.

The Soul of the Bible is Christ

The third feature of our Bible reading is that Christ must be the center. If at the Moscow Conference of 1976 it was said that "the books of the Holy Scriptures are one inseparable whole," then in what can we find this unity and inseparability? In the person of Christ, He is the connecting thread that runs through the entire Holy Scriptures, from the first verse to the last. We have already mentioned how prophecies about Christ arise in the pages of the Old Testament. I had a history teacher at school who liked to sum up with the words: "Everything is interconnected." This rule is great for studying the Holy Scriptures. Look for interconnecting, repeating chords and gradually everything will unfold. Often, Western critical studies of Scripture employ a methodology of analysis in which each book is broken down into different source units. The connection between them is destroyed, and the Bible is reduced to a multitude of original components. We need to see both the heterogeneity and the integrity of the Holy Scriptures, a comprehensive conclusion on a par with the split primary sources. The Orthodox generally prefer a synthetic rather than an analytical method of research. The Holy Scriptures are considered by us as a single whole, in which the constant presence of Christ is a constant connecting principle.