Why the Apostles Didn't Read Their Bibles/Torahs

Scott Kistler posted a month ago about efforts to evangelize people in oral cultures. There seems be be some amount of debate about the best methods to go about doing this. What struck me at the time was the total absence of reference to the early church's methodology. Here was a group of people with almost unparalleled success in evangelism. They literally took Christianity from a rag-tag band of at most 100 misfits to half the Roman Empire in just 300 years. While perhaps one can point to the evangelism of the New World in Spanish speaking territories as another highly successful example of evangelism to an oral culture (7 million converts in less than 10 years), that happened in the wake of the apparition at Guadalupe and was not something whose methods can ever be duplicated or used as a pattern. I really can't think of another outreach to an oral culture that was as consistently successful as what was accomplished by the Holy Spirit through the early Church, so I would think that people studying this would give it more attention than they do.

That got me thinking that perhaps the reason the early church gets short shrift is the extreme reliance in some Protestant circles on the extraBiblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura. People look at the book of Acts and say, "The Bereans went home and read for themselves what the Prophets said, and that is what we need to do." This is assumed to be taken as the pattern for what we should all do as individuals. Therefore, any evangelistic activity that does not bring the individual into close personal literary contact with the Scriptures is doing something dangerous and setting these people up for a fall.

However, I think if one looks at the passage closely, one sees that things were really quite different than what is conveyed in the popular imagination. The Scriptures say in Acts 17, "[10] The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroe'a; and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. [11] Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessaloni'ca, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. [12] Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men."

Notice where the preaching was done: in the synagogue. That is also where the examination of Scriptures was done. Ancient Jewish culture, Roman culture, Greek culture, and indeed all ancient cultures were oral cultures in very important ways. They had to be, because the cost of books meant only the most wealthy could own one personally. All reading and study of the Scriptures was done in community because books were scarce and extraordinarily expensive resources. People might ponder the Scriptures when at home or at prayer, but they didn't actually study them on their own. That's why we read in several places about Jesus going off by himself to pray, but we never read about him going off by himself to read the Scriptures. He couldn't have afforded it and neither could his disciples. Pretty much nobody, not Jesus, not the apostles, not anyone but the most wealthy could have afforded to have the Scriptures in their home. Incidentally, I haven't read this and don't know it for a fact, but I would doubt that any but the oldest and most established house churches could have afforded a complete set of the Scriptures. Given growth rates in the early church, I think this pretty much precludes a large percentage of congregations from obtaining a complete set of the Scriptures in the earliest years. They would have had to share and pass around well-worn copies until they grew enough to be able to afford a full set, which also strikes me as a great promoter of unity... but I digress.

The point is that the study of Scripture during the most sustained growth ever experienced in Christian history was entirely communal in nature, and this has tremendous repercussions on how they would have viewed interpretive authority. The primary reason for discomfort with oral methods among Protestants, I believe, lies in the difference conceptions of the place of interpretive authority between the early Church and Protestantism.

Protestantism says, "4. Will we clarify for them that, although all other holy books may have some helpful religious insights, nevertheless they do not have any final authority from God, but only the Bible does?"

The pre-100 AD church said, "But I shall not be unwilling to put down, along with my interpretations, whatsoever instructions I received with care at any time from the elders, and stored up with care in my memory, assuring you at the same time of their truth. For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who related strange commandments, but in those who rehearsed the commandments given by the Lord to faith, and proceeding from truth itself. If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings,--what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice."

and the early 100's church said, "See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is[administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude[of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid."

and the late 100's church said, "It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to "the perfect" apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

2. Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority,6 that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere."

So, what's the point? Are the Scriptures not to be read by individuals, now that books are cheap and we have the opportunity? Of course they should be regularly read by individuals. The Scriptures are the Word of God, supremely authoritative for our lives. However, I think there is a danger in pridefully imagining that because we have personal access to the Scriptures, we actually understand the gospel better than those who relied primarily on congregational reading and preaching to learn about Christ, or better than the bishop God placed over us.

My main point in writing this is to point out how odd it is that people who acknowledge that the world of Jesus was an oral world and spend millions on conferences sharing the latest methods to spread the gospel in oral cultures have near zero interest in the most sustainably successful evangelistic effort to oral learners of all time. I suspect it is because what Newman wrote 100 years ago is as true today as it was back then, "And this utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical Christianity is a plain fact, whether the latter be regarded in its earlier or in its later centuries. Protestants can as little bear its Ante-nicene as its Post-tridentine period."