Luke 4:17-19 “and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
” We don’t know how fortunate we are not to be expected to search through the scriptures the way Jesus did. The oldest complete scroll of the book of Isaiah is 10-10.5 inches tall and 24 feet long.
Jesus would have picked up the heavy scroll with both hands and unrolled from the left while re-rolling with his right hand. The text he found is near the end of the book of Isaiah, so he had to unroll almost the whole scroll to get to it, read it, and roll it back to the beginning. It might have been somewhat of an advantage to know the passage he was looking for was near the end of the scroll, but even so, I cannot imagine having to roll through 24 feet of papyrus to find a scripture reading.
Remember, there were no chapters and verses in the scriptures until sometime in the thirteenth century so he was purely looking through the 54 or so columns of test to find the words. I know a lot of people who can find things in the scriptures pretty quickly, but I would challenge them to do that without the benefit of chapter and verse. The way we study the scriptures today is pretty lazy if you think about it.
We put our little tabs on the pages at the beginning of each book and then use our sticky tabs to mark our favorite places, or highlight them in some way. Many people don’t even bother to open the paper copy of their Bibles any more – everything you need to find the word you might need is on Bible Gateway or BlueletterBiible.com! You don’t really need to know the book, chapter or verse – just type the familiar words into your phone or tell Siri or Mr.
Google what you are looking for, and VOILA! There it i(usually). I’m not gonna lie, I love that convenience, but I worry that when we use the easy way, we miss the verses before and after the one we wanted and we don’t get the true context. I remember a former pastor telling me “You can prove or disprove just about anything by plucking scripture readings from the Bible.
” Indeed, I think we can get ourselves into a whole lot of trouble doing that. The Bible isn’t intended to be used to beat people over the head with our opinions and ideas. It is far too beautiful for that kind of nonsense.
ADVERTISEMENT When Jesus walked the road to Emmaus after the resurrection, he opened the minds of the two with whom he walked to “understand the scriptures”. I pray that as we walk with him on our journeys through life, he will open ours as well. And I know he invites us to explore, learn, study and love the sacred story as much as he did!.
