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You're listening to Tim Bulkeley's 5 minute Bible
Being Ideal Readers
Part One
in which we discover the importance of a psalm
when i'm explaining
narrative theory to students
one of the most difficult bits to grasp is the concept of the implied reader
there are other names for this difficult concept
one of them is the Ideal Reader
the different kinds of slightly different nuances of meaning
saying implied reader
implies
that real readers only get to meet these implied leaders through the text itself
and a good dose of background and imagination
and when you're reading narrative
and you're wanting to
get at these implied readers that's really important
but that's the topic for another podcast
in this podcast i want to focus on
ideal readers
talking about ideal readers focusing our attention on
who should be be, to read this text?
what sort of people, what do we need to know?
I'm going to illustrate it by looking at Ephesians chapter 4 with you
Ephesians chapter 4 because i preached on that on Sunday
I preached on it on Sunday because on Saturday we had our 'family christmas'
i know, i know, it was February, it's now March
not christmas time at all,
but Barbara and I had been in Thailand over the real Christmas
and Richard was in the Isle of Man so
this was a good opportunity to get most of us together
and christmas is
well apart from the religious stuff
all about presents ;)
and so i wanted to preach about presents from the Bible
and so i preached on Ephesians 4 and focused on verses
eleven to thirteen
they're the ones that everybody knows
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,
some pastors and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry,
for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God
to maturity,
to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
they're words that just about everybody has heard
words or often preached at ordination services
like they were read and preached at mine years ago
but in the context of thinking about
ideal readers
and so for this podcast
wanting to ask
what does a reader of this text need to know?
we look a bit wider
You see, if you're reading the whole chapter
verses eight to ten
seem complicated
and boring
and often nowadays get left out
Therefore it is said, "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
he gave gifts to his people."
(When it says, "He ascended,"
what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
He who descended
is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens,
so that he might fill all things.)
And then it goes on with the bit we read before about the gifts
us modern readers find
verses eight to ten complicated and boring
but if you read through the chapter
you notice how stressed they are in the text
they mattered
now, verse 8
is quite clear
it's a picture of a conquering hero
a conquering hero holding his triumph and bringing presents for the people
Yeah, you knew about that stuff didn't you
or if you didn't a good Bible Dictionary will tell you about it
picture Julius Caesar coming into Rome after a triumphal
military campaign
with a whole big procession with tigers it he's captured, and the rest,
that's the idea
Of course, here it comes to the Old Testament
Paul is pretty much quoting from psalm sixty-eight
or sixty-seven depending on where you're reading in Hebrew or English
there too, the picture is of a triumph
but
there is too much material in all this to do in one 5 minute podcast
so I'll need to finish this tomorrow
but while you're waiting
why did you look at Psalm sixty-eight
and try and work out what there is there
that will help you to be a more ideal reader
of Ephesians chapter 4
You see, reading the Bible is one way to become an ideal reader of the Bible
Try it, you'll like it!
Bye for now