We tried something new this week Discovery Bible Study It's a group technique. A short passage is read aloud in full, by three successive people. The others can read along or just listen. We are encouraged to give a try to just listening, to attend more fully to the words and the flow rather than our own stray thoughts. I gave that a try. Then three others retell the passage in succession without looking at notes. Everyone remembers different details. Then the group discusses the passage, trying to stay with what is said there, rather other connections we might make. When one person noticed that the text said that Jesus heard the voice, she asked if others present heard it. One of the leaders agreed that it did say that here, but in other gospels it included others. I thought that was as far afield as we should go and refrained from going further and mentioning Paul on the road in The Acts of the Apostles. It is too easy for one such as I to go down such paths.
The study suggests questions.
We did Mark 1:1-15. I noticed that these verses highlight the strangeness of the scene for the listener, almost like the beginning of a movie. There is the reminder that this was prophesied centuries ago - that doesn't happen every day, does it? John is described as a strange, almost storybook character: strange location, strange clothes, strange diet. This alarming figure announces that an even more alarming figure is about to arrive. Heaven is torn open - whatever that means - and something doveish comes into view. God speaks. The second, more alarming figure is baptised and goes out into the wilderness for forty days, with wild animals, angels, and Satan around. In a very few verses we are told "All bets are off in this story. Anything might happen. You are now encountering things you never have before, and it's going to get even more weird."
It was a new way of seeing it for me. I like this approach.
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