Reading Guide Index

About

This site is an online guide to the Christian bible, aimed at those who read it in public worship. This page provides a detailed index to the guide.

Section 1: Hardware – how reading shaped the Bible

Writing and reading
Reading culture
A very public text
Jesus reads the lesson
In the second century church
Reading the right books: memory
Reading the right books: the rule of faith
Making the New Testament
Arguing over the Old Testament
Reading in public

Section 2: Firmware – the practice of reading

Section 3: Software – the books we read

Old Testament

The Law

The poetic and wisdom books

A grab bag of poetry, proverbs and perspicacity (section introduction)
Faith when the world makes no sense – the book of Job
Sing us one of the songs of Zion – Psalms
Too many cooks make light work – Proverbs
Life? Don’t talk to me about life! – Ecclesiastes
With breasts like twin gazelles – the Song of Songs
The gift of Wisdom
Translating and publishing grandfather’s wisdom – Sirach

The prophets

Making prophets: the economy of justice (section introduction)
The New Testament’s favourite Hebrew prophet: Isaiah
When the call of God is a tale of woe: Jeremiah, Lamentations and Baruch
On the impossibility of describng God: the weird of Ezekiel
Daniel: interpreting dreams & God’s graffiti
Twelve books, one scroll, mixed messages: the minor prophets (today’s first four)
Mixed prophets, mixed messages: Jonah, Micah, Nahum and Habbakuk
Waiting for the return of the king: at the end of the First Testament

New Testament

The Gospels and Acts

Four portraits, no photo: every gospel tells a story
A well-trained scribe: Matthew and the call to perfection
Anti-Semitic? The Pharisees and the Jewish people in Matthew’s gospel
Riddle me this: Jesus as a misunderstood puzzle. Mark’s story.
A gospel rich in stories: Luke
When repentance is more God’s work than ours: Luke’s stress on divine mercy
To infinity and beyond! (journeying via Jerusalem) – Luke’s journey structure
Retelling the Jesus story after long meditation: John’s Gospel
Truth in the dock, the Spirit at the bar: John’s distinctive themes
We are an Easter people: the Acts of the Apostles

Paul’s Letters

Paul: a health warning (Part 1 of an introduction to Paul)
A radical faith in a faithful messiah (Part 2 of an introduction to Paul)
A letter, not a compendium of theology (Romans, part 1)
Tracing Paul’s argument in Romans (Romans part 2)
When the church doesn’t do “Christian” (1 Corinthians)
Keeping up with the Corinthians (2 Corinthians)
Paul’s angriest letter: Galatians
A bold vision of a cosmic church: Ephesians
Colonies of heaven: Christianity as a Roman religion in Philippians
King of the universe: Colossians
It’s the end of the world as we know it: the Thessalonian letters
House rules and cultural accommodation: the Pastoral letters
Negotiating the master-slave relationship in a church family: the letter to Philemon.

The other letters and Revelation

More perfect priest, superior sacrifice: Hebrews
Keeping it in the family: James
The first papal encyclical? 1 Peter
On the periphery of the Bible: 2 Peter and Jude
The material reality of love: the letters of John
Visions, vindication and victory: the strange world of the Apocalypse
 

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Some frequently read posts

The material reality of love: the letters of John

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Although there are three letters which bear John’s name, the second and third are very short, and perhaps show something of how the teaching of the longer letter is put into action in some specific relationships. Only the first letter is used in the lectionary. This letter in particular shares some significant thinking and vocabulary with the Fourth Gospel. Whether this means they come from the same person or simply the same theological circles is impossible to say. None of them give their author a name. Tradition has associated them with John the Apostle, but there is no way of knowing exactly what relationship, if any, he had with the circles from which these writings came. Detail from a portrait of John the Apostle by Alonso Cano. John is sometimes portrayed blessing a poisoned chalice. For more on this story, see the page for this picture at the Louvre. Apart from the festivals of John the Apostle and All Saints’ Day, readings from 1 John provide the second reading
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Welcome to Lection and Liturgy

Welcome to Lection and Liturgy. I have backed up to this site a series of posts making a guide to the whole of the Christian Bible, aimed particularly at those who read it in public. My name's Doug Chaplin, I work as a priest and trainer in the Church of England. Everything here is written in a purely personal capacity. I hope the posts here will help people read Scripture in ways which help their listeners understand what is being read. You can read more about this site in this introductory post , and you can follow it in "book order" using this Reading Guide Index . So here it is: the Bible in 90 posts.
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The first papal encyclical? 1 Peter

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My title is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Historically, Rome seems not to have had a single monarchical bishop until well into the second century. Nonetheless, there is a sense that, in looking back to Peter as the first pope, church tradition reflects his calling to be first among the apostles, the rather wobbly rock on which Jesus chooses to start building his church, as well as his clear association with Rome, from where this letter appears to be written. More accurately, calling it an encyclical picks up the way in which it is written to a circle of churches rather than a single congregation. Peter’s first letter is read mainly on the Sundays of Easter during year A. This reflects the way in which it begins with a celebration of the resurrection which remains the frame for the rest of the letter. There are a number of overlaps with some of the letters of Paul, in language and theology. First Peter also shares an expectation with the later Pauline letters that women an
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Visions, vindication and victory: the strange world of the Apocalypse

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The Revelation to John, also known as the Apocalypse, contains seven letters, which make up the second and third chapters. However, it is not itself a letter, but the only New Testament book which as a whole is in the literary genre of apocalyptic. This is a type of literary description of visions that claim to unveil the meaning of history for those in the know. 1 They often contain the metaphor of a journey through heavenly or spiritual realms with a guide. The vision at the heart of the Apocalypse is that the soft power of the Lamb’s self-sacrifice will be triumphant over the hard power of the mighty Roman empire. While readings from this book are used on a number of feast days, 1 Revelation also provides the second reading for the Sundays of Easter in Year C. Its celebration of Christ’s triumph draws out a key aspect of the Easter gospel. Readers are somewhat prone to introducing readings from this book wrongly. It is the Book of Revelation in the singular, not R
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On the periphery of the Bible: 2 Peter and Jude

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Some books of the Bible are effectively marginalised. In today’s church, Second Peter and Jude are among those which are pushed out to the edge of the canon. Modern scholars’ doubts that 2 Peter was written by Peter are paralleled by the early church’s reluctance to accept the book as one for public reading. Jude was rather more popular in the earliest centuries. When it comes to our lectionaries, there are only two readings from Second Peter, and none from Jude. One comes in Advent, 1 and the other is one of those provided for the Feast of the Transfiguration. 2 Today’s scholarship is overwhelmingly convinced that 2 Peter is not from Peter’s hand, but written to perpetuate the author’s view of Peter’s teaching. It seems something almost written in the genre of a testament or farewell speech (see 2 Pet 1:14-15). Quite oddly, 2 Peter’s second chapter plagiarises the letter of Jude, which is a good reason for treating them together. Jude’s letter, like Peter’s second chap
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