Renewed Commitment to the Public Reading of Scripture

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 1 Timothy 4:13

The most popular trend in Scripture engagement in this digital age is the production of multimedia content that provides individuals with an immersive experience of the Bible, whether distributed online or through smartphone apps. Though there is nothing inherently wrong with that, at Bibles International (BI) our Scripture engagement work prioritizes what God has revealed in His ancient Word about how God’s people should encounter and use Scripture.

In some of our project languages, using technology to encourage Scripture engagement has its limits. In Chad, Africa, for example, most villagers outside the major cities can’t afford a smartphone, and they don’t have reliable electricity or internet access.

Another obstacle to Scripture engagement in Chad is its literacy rate, the lowest in Africa despite the efforts of French colonialists and American missionaries for over 130 years. And the majority of literate Chadians can read in French or Arabic but not their mother tongue. BI has Bible translation projects in eight vernacular languages in Chad, and teaching literacy plays a vital role in each one. But our reach is limited, and few people have the opportunity to join our literacy classes.

So how can the thousands of Chadian believers who cannot read or afford smartphones have access to God’s Word? We find the answer in the ancient pages of Scripture, not in modern technology.

Brief Look at the History of Literacy

Throughout human history up until the last few centuries, most people did not read—they heard writing read aloud. In the first century, when the New Testament was written, the use of writing flourished, and scholars estimate that the literacy rate in the Roman empire soared to an astonishing 10–15%, about half that of modern-day Chad. This was a remarkable achievement considering that ancient manuscripts had to be copied by hand and were very expensive and difficult to read. And as in modern-day Chad, in the Roman period literacy was concentrated in cities. But everyone knew about writing and had heard it read, though the vast majority of people couldn’t read it for themselves. This was the situation of the whole world before the invention of the Gutenberg press, which sparked a cultural revolution of literacy in the modern West a mere 585 years ago.

Though hard for us to imagine, before the widespread print distribution of the Bible, no one read God’s Word while sipping a cup of coffee before going to work in the morning. In ancient times, believers listened to the Bible read aloud at church on Sunday, and they had to retain what they’d heard because they couldn’t take a copy of it home. Some modern cultures outside the West, including Chad, remain in this situation to this day.

Public Reading of Scripture in Bible Times

As we moderns read the Bible, we see the echoes of God’s people hearing it in both the Old and New Testaments. The Greek and Hebrew words that we translate “read” mean to do so aloud. This is because writing recorded spoken words, and it was intended to be read aloud and heard again as spoken words. The Lord told Jeremiah to write his prophecies on a scroll for the house of Judah to hear (Jer 36:1–3). The risen Son of Man told John to write what He had said to the seven churches in Asia and that they should hear it (Rev 2–3).

Usually one person read aloud as others listened. In Revelation 1:3 John writes, “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it.” (Notice again that listeners heard what was written.) Paul expected his letters to be read aloud to churches (Col 4:16 and 1 Thess 5:27), and in 1 Timothy 4:13 he told Timothy to devote himself to the out-loud reading of Scripture for the church at Ephesus. He wasn’t telling Timothy to be faithful to Bible reading in his personal devotions.

Most biblical texts could be and were read aloud and heard all at once. Though it may seem incredible to us, the Israelites would listen to the whole Law of Moses (Deut 31:11 and Josh 8:34), which took Ezra the scribe from daybreak until noon to read (Neh 8:1–3; 9:3). In the mid-second century, Justin Martyr wrote that Christians would gather to hear the writings of the apostles and prophets read “as long as time permits” (1 Apology, 67). To ancient believers, the notion that they should read the Scriptures silently while at home alone would have seemed absurd because so few people had access to manuscripts and most of them couldn’t read. Instead, manuscripts of the Scriptures should be read aloud for all to hear.

Public Reading Still Needed Today

As it turns out, the Bible was written for people like our Christian brothers and sisters in Chad—people who cannot read for themselves. None of the apostles and prophets wrote for a mostly-literate audience, so they expected that their texts would be read aloud for their audience to hear. It is therefore unnecessary for us to come up with a creative modern solution to this ancient problem for the Chadian churches. We can simply encourage their leaders to do what the Bible already commands: to devote themselves to the public reading of Scripture for their churches.

In April 2024, I taught several Chadian church leaders about the importance of public Scripture reading. They then asked him to develop a Scripture reading schedule for the New Testament. (Their languages did not yet have a completed translation of the Old Testament.) They asked for each reading to take 10–20 minutes, allowing most of the shorter epistles to be heard all at once. I submitted a New Testament reading schedule to them in June 2024. By December, only three churches were using the schedule, but in January 2025 they reported on the fruit of it at a conference attended by hundreds of pastors.

By the time my colleague and I returned to Chad this past March, 50 churches in several language groups were using the reading schedule! One pastor reported that the people have great joy when they hear the Bible read because they cannot read it at home. Another pastor said that more people hear the announcements because they come early enough to hear the Scriptures read at the beginning of the service. Thousands of Chadian believers who cannot read for themselves are now hearing whole books of the Bible for the very first time. Only time will tell the full impact that the New Testament reading schedule will have on the churches of Southern Chad.

In this day and age, reading is vital to Scripture engagement, so BI’s literacy and linguistics team will continue to teach as many people to read as they can. At the same time, our Scripture Engagement Department is developing training materials to teach those who can read to use their skill vocally for the benefit of whole churches. And we believe that a renewed commitment to the public reading of Scripture would even strengthen churches in the U.S. where most people can read for themselves.

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Michael Carlyle is the Manager of Scripture Engagement at Bibles International, the Bible society of Baptist Mid-Missions. Prior to joining Bibles International, Michael and his wife Julie served as church-planting missionaries to Cambodia for 13 years.

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All Scripture quotations are from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

Photos courtesy of Bibles International.