I’ve participated in a few Bible studies and small groups, and even occasionally led one, usually cribbing ideas from Dr. William Barclay.  Most of the folks in my small groups have been normal people like me, giving us the comfortable feeling of being on the same level and trusting in the wisdom of crowds and divine intervention to keep our group from just being the blind leading the blind.  However, there were those occasional strange people that participated, so here’s a little heads-up for you if you intend to start your own 20/20 Blind Club.

HOW TO DEAL WITH WORD READERS

A word reader is someone with formal literacy training who can look at a page covered with lines and dots, and actually consistently generate the same sounds from it.  Word readers aren’t normal humans.  Unlike me, they actually studied English in high school and college, whereas I didn’t have time to learn things like subclauses and similes; I was too busy pulling pigtails and thinking about how to advance past the seventh level boss in Turrican, muttering under my breath, “Scrap the laser, get those grenades,” or “No, it’s lasers, but I gotta crouch.”

You may have word readers in your Bible study. You can recognize them because they usually have Bible covers and ask the study leader for the “reference” of an idea instead of the “author.”  Listen for other giveaway phrases they say, like “verse,” “concordance,” or “ameliorate.”

You no longer need be intimidated. This short primer will equip you to impress them when you say “parallelism” instead of “that guy keeps repeating himself,” and “acrostic” instead of “this stuff doesn’t rhyme worth squat.”  (Here’s a fun little joke to play on your small group members.  Say, “All Christians rely on stuff taught in church.”  Your small group will be laughing so hard you might as well break out the cookies early.)

Note that most literary terms are Latin or Greek and came from the “classical period.” (The “classical period” lasted a few hundred years and featured people expressing complex ideas in tiresome long poems.  It began when Socrates bullied a cooper into admitting he didn’t know for sure that his casks were casks.  None of the poems from that period rhyme, and they all announce what will happen right after this, but then the commercial break makes no sense).

Here are a few terms you should know:

Passage: longish bit of words.  When someone just can’t stop talking, say, “Can you break down that passage a bit, buddy?” When he stares at you and says “uh…”, give him a thumbs up and say, “Concise, my man, concise!”

Instead of “I’m sure I head that in some sermon!” you can say the much more sophisticated, “That’s ex cathedra, Barry, ex cathedra!”

Your group may need to be encouraged to use analogy, which means “to apply an unrelated sappy story to their life.”  Exhort the whole group, “Brothers and sisters, this evening let’s use simile, which means ‘Talk like, you know, like, you had a thought, but it’s like something else.'”

Shout “Sola scriptura!” when someone says something you suspect isn’t quite kosher.  Last week when a guy wondered if ripping an eye out would actually help him, I yelled out “Sola scriptura!” at him.  You should have seen how quickly he dropped the topic. His girlfriend was so grateful she had tears in her eyes.

Actually any Greek or Latin words impress word readers.  If you say them with enough authority, they’ll question their own knowledge of terms and be impressed with you.  Here are a few suggestions:

“John, I think your take is a little short on ophthalmology.”
“Melissa, in this group we try to avoid viviparity, ok?”
“Chuck, you’ve got to raise your expectorations!”

Well, that’s about all, folks.  If you have exacerbating questions, ask me.  Remember, it’s all about loquation, loquation, and loquation.  Take that, word readers.

If you’re a good evangelical Christian, you’re probably irritated at the above.  You’re used to the primacy of the written Word of God, and the idea that a Christian would treat literacy so dismissively strikes at the heart of what you believe is necessary for a thriving Christian walk.  You may be quite familiar with some of the terms I used and probably just a little offended that I would treat reading the Bible so lightly.  And besides, doesn’t Paul call us to strive for excellence?  How then can I expect to get away with mocking literacy education like this?

And yet we can get away with mocking fluency or even basic literacy in other arts.  I was pointed to a blog post by Mark Altrogge, “the original triple threat: singer, songwriter, pastor. He has been the senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Indiana, PA for over 25 years, and is the author of many well known worship songs such as “I Stand In Awe”, and “In The Presence”. “  It was tagged “humor,” but the longer I thought about it, the less funny it was.  Here is a Christian leader who champions the importance of Biblical literacy lampooning musical literacy, as though there were a shortcut to musical excellence and those that put forth the effort of learning musical literacy were fools to be pitied.

I think it’s a short step from believing in shortcuts to musical excellence to believing in shortcuts in Biblical excellence, and I thought the above parody of his parody was the best way to show it.  I don’t know if I succeeded.  I still hope I misunderstood him and this post is belaboring a moot point (other posts of his seem in favor of artistic excellence), but I have the impression I’m not the only reader bothered and offended by his post, even if he did mean to be understood differently.

My hope is that, having gotten it out of my system, I can forget about it and let his post go to pasture, and care about musical and other artistic excellence in a more productive way.