Got a question for you. When was the last time your church gave a long, unhurried stretch of time to simply reading the Bible out loud? Not as a warm-up to the sermon. Not as a thirty-second sprint through a passage before the real content kicks in. Just the Word, read well, given space to breathe.
If you are like most worship leaders, the honest answer is not recently. And here is the irony that should make all of us a little uncomfortable. We who love the Bible most might be the very ones crowding it out.
We Love Preaching. That Might Be the Problem.
The evangelical church has done something genuinely wonderful over the last few decades. We have experienced a full-on renaissance of expository, text-driven preaching. Deep study with careful exegesis by pastors who spend twenty hours in the text before they say a word from the stage is truly a good and right thing.
But somewhere along the way, a subtle shift happened. We got so good at talking about the Bible that we quietly stopped making room for the Bible to just talk.
Think about your last Sunday service. The band rehearsed for hours. The sermon was carefully crafted, outlined, illustrated, and delivered with real skill and care. And the Scripture reading? Someone walked up, read two or three verses at a medium-fast clip, and sat back down before anyone had fully processed what was said. Box checked, now on to the good stuff.
Here is what that communicates, whether we mean it to or not. It tells our congregations that God’s unedited Word is not quite enough on its own. That it needs a skilled communicator to make it useful. That the text is basically a launching pad, not a destination.
The Bible Does Not Actually Need Us
Paul wrote to Timothy with a clear, three-part pastoral instruction in 1 Timothy 4:13: devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Three distinct things, and the reading comes first.
And in 2 Timothy 3:16–17, he reminds us that Scripture is theopneustos, breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness all on its own. The text does not need commentary to do its job. It is already alive and it is already active. Hebrews 4:12 says so plainly. The Word of God is its own preacher, its own counselor, its own teacher, its own evangelist.
This is a big deal. If we actually believe this, it changes how we plan a service.
What the Early Church Understood That We Have Forgotten
The earliest believers did not have personal Bibles. Most of them could not read. So when they gathered on Sundays, hearing the Word read aloud was not a sideshow. It was the main attraction. Justin Martyr, writing around AD 155, described early Christian worship this way: the writings of the apostles and prophets were read as long as time permitted, and then the leader would speak, instructing and encouraging. The reading was the central event. The sermon was the response to it.
The Reformers, with all their passion for Scripture alone, also insisted on what they called tota Scriptura, the whole Bible, read systematically in public worship over time. The Westminster Directory for Public Worship explicitly required that all the canonical books be read publicly so that the congregation could hear the entire counsel of God. Not just the favorite parts, and not just the easy parts. All of it.
We have more personal access to Scripture today than any generation in history. Every Christ-follower’s phone has three Bible apps on it. And yet, the corporate, out-loud, unhurried hearing of God’s Word in our gathered worship has never been thinner. That is a strange thing to think about.
When the Sermon Becomes the Star
When the text is treated as a runway for the sermon, something else happens too. The spotlight drifts. It moves from God’s revelation to the pastor’s personality. And little by little, congregations begin to show up for the communicator rather than for the Word. They become consumers of a particular preacher’s take rather than recipients of the living voice of God.
There is also a coverage problem. When the only Scripture a congregation hears week to week is what a pastor chooses to preach, they only encounter the texts their pastor is drawn to. The hard passages get skipped. The obscure books gather dust. Whole swaths of God’s self-revelation never get a hearing. That is a quietly devastating form of spiritual malnutrition.
Try This Sunday
You do not have to overhaul your entire service flow to fix this. Start small but start intentionally.
Uncouple the Scripture reading from the sermon. Give it its own moment earlier in the service, before anyone mentions what the message will be about. Let it stand alone. And then read generously, not three verses, but a chapter, or at least a significant portion of a passage. Old Testament in one place, New Testament in another. Let people hear the shape of a whole argument, a whole story, a whole poem.
And prepare the reader. Instrumentalists and vocalists rehearse. The person reading God’s Word should have the passage days in advance, with time to practice pacing and tone and the weight of what they are saying. A lament should sound like a lament. A declaration of praise should sound like it costs something good to say. The Word deserves that kind of care.
Consider praying before the reading specifically. Not the pastoral prayer, not the prayer before the sermon. A short, sincere request right before the text is read, for the Holy Spirit to open hearts to hear. It is a simple liturgical act that reorients everyone, reader and congregation alike, toward expectation.
Because expectation is the whole thing, really. What do we expect to happen when someone reads the Bible to us? If we believe that this is the breathed-out Word of the living God, then we should expect nothing less than life change every single time it is read aloud. Conversion, comfort, conviction, and healing are all available, right there in the text, with no human commentary required.
Give the Word the Room It Deserves
We love great preaching. We should. But we do not have to choose between excellent preaching and the robust, unhurried reading of Scripture. We can have both. We simply have to be willing to protect space for the Word to stand on its own two feet.
The Bible is not a warm-up act. It is the headliner. And when we plan our services like we actually believe that, our congregations will begin to lean in to the reading the same way they lean in to a great song or a powerful message. Because God’s Word, read aloud with care and expectation, is doing something our best sermon illustrations simply cannot do. And that, friend, is a very good gift.
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