One of my all time favorite bumper stickers reads, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” My wife, who is a teacher, taught me that the way we learn to read is by “decoding” the jumble of letters on the printed page. First we learn that the letters have names and sounds. Then we learn that when some letters are put together, they make words. And then we learn that the words have meaning. When we are learning to read it is rewarding to decode the words we see. Then reading becomes a way of life. Some of us learn to read in more than one language, but the decoding process is always the same.
We learn to read the Bible in the same way—by decoding it. We know that the letters make words, but the meaning of the words is not always self-evident. Because we don’t have tools to help us decode the message, we don’t read the Bible—even though we may feel like we should. This Sunday we will begin reading the Gospel of Mark. We will learn how to decode the message of this gospel and discover what it has to teach us about being a biblical community. I hope you will join us in the Seekers Class, but if Sunday morning at 9:00 is not a time that you can join us, let me know and perhaps we can find another time when we can meet as a group.
David Hansen