When I teach my elementary students to read, I have to be aware that there is more to reading than just being able to pronounce the words.  Many times, I have been fooled initially into believing that a student was an excellent reader only to realize after asking a few comprehension questions that instead of being a reader, my student was a word caller.  That is the term reading teachers give to students who do not think about the meaning of the words that they are reading.  Unfortunately, too often we become word callers when we read the Bible.  One reason for this problem is overfamiliarity with a text.  We have heard a verse so many times that we can repeat it without thought, so we simply do not process the meaning of the text that we are reading.  Another reason for word calling a Bible verse is that there are words or ideas that are difficult to comprehend.  A third reason for word calling as we read the Scriptures is because we do not feel a connection to the ideas in the verse.  As long as you settle for word calling Bible verses, your Bible study experience will be bland and boring.  How can you change from being a word caller to a thinker who lets the word of God transform him or her?  There are some simple techniques that can begin changing the way you read the Bible.

The first reason for shallow reading is overfamiliarity with a text.  An excellent example of this kind of text is John 3:16.  Most Christians can recite this verse from memory.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”  (John 3:16).  I used the King James Version because that is the translation that is in my memory whenever I recite this text.  There is a reason that this verse is so well-known.  It is one of the most profound verses in the Bible; however, because of our familiarity with the words, we often do not plumb the depths of the love of God described in the text.  How can we gain more meaning from an overfamiliar verse?  One method is to simply find a translation or paraphrase of the Bible that is extremely different from the version that we usually use.  Fortunately, there are a variety of Bibles to choose from in English. One kind that I like to use is a direct Bible translation that follows the Greek word order (Greek interlinear gloss), such as the Apostolic Bible Polyglot (ABP).  This kind of Bible version is a word-by-word translation that does not attempt to make the verse sound like modern English.  By seeing the verse in a word order that is strange to us in English, we can jumpstart our thinking process so that we notice the depth of meaning in the verse.  Here is John 3:16 in the ABP version.  “For thus God loved the world, so that [son his only born he gave], that every one trusting in him, should not perish, but should have [life eternal].”  On the other end of the translation spectrum are Bible paraphrases where the goal is to put the ideas of the verse into modern English without necessarily using words from the original language.  It is important to remember that a paraphrase is dependent upon the writer’s understanding of the text, so the end product may be biased away from the intent of the original Biblical author.  Keeping this caution in mind, paraphrases can be useful in helping us to think about the meaning of a text in new and exciting ways.  The most popular paraphrase nowadays is The Message by Eugene Peterson.  Here is his paraphrase of John 3:16. “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”  In short, reading verses in an unfamiliar Bible translation or paraphrase can facilitate our comprehension of an overfamiliar text. 

However, in my opinion, the previous method is not the most effective way to overcome word calling because of familiarity.  The procedure that I prefer is to paraphrase the text in my own words.  Just as there are different methods of translation, there are different ways to paraphrase.  You can try substituting synonyms for most words like a word-by-word translation.  “Because Yahweh held the earth so dear to his heart, He bestowed His singular child to humanity in order to stop all people who had faith in Jesus from dying and gifting them with the opportunity to live without ceasing.”  However, I prefer to try to paraphrase the ideas rather than each word.  “God loved Jesus with all His being, but He loved me also.  He presented Jesus to me and the rest of humanity as a gift in order to rescue us from death and to never have to be separated from us again.  This great sacrifice by the Father and the Son is beyond my comprehension, but I love that God loves so well and deeply that He is willing to empty heaven for me and my fellow sinners in order to be with us for eternity.”  In this paraphrase, I added myself into the verse and applied it to my own life.  This is not a translation, but it is true to the ideas found in the verse.  As you attempt to repeat the verse in your own words, you are required to think intensely about the meaning of individual words, but you must also consider the overall meaning and the relationship of ideas.  Thus, you can bypass your tendency to word call an overfamiliar verse by making it uniquely your own.

A second reason for word calling a verse is a lack of comprehension, either of specific words or of an idea.  If the problem is unfamiliarity with a word, finding a synonym in an alternate translation or looking the word up in a dictionary is a quick fix.  On the other hand, sometimes we understand the words, but the way they are used together forms an indecipherable phrase.  One cause for this incomprehension is a lack of contextual knowledge.  For example, in Amos, God warns the kingdom of Israel that their sins are going to condemn them, but the manner of punishment can be confusing without historical context.  “The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks” (Amos 4:2).  This verse can be extremely confusing until you know that it was the nation of Assyria who took the people of the kingdom of Israel away into captivity and that one of the cruel methods that the Assyrians used to humble their captives was to insert hooks into the nose or lip and lead the prisoners into exile with a line attached to the hook.  How can you gain knowledge about this kind of verse?  A Bible commentary can help although in this case, I learned the contextual information in a book on Biblical archaeology. 

The important rule to remember when dealing with a lack of contextual knowledge is to be aware of the problem.  We do not need to know the answer to every confusing phrase as we are reading, but we need to identify our source of confusion in the text and have faith that with further context, the confusion can be cleared up.  All too often, readers just decide that the Bible is a mystifying book with passages that will be impossible for everyone to understand.  Throw that idea out and have confidence that clarity is possible, but we just do not have all the relevant data yet.  Another possible area of confusion is when the Bible author’s logic does not match our own.  I run into this problem with Paul’s letters many times.  There are some deep ideas that require not just thought, but also more experience with God before they can become clear.  Paul referred to this issue in First Corinthians.  “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?” (1Corinthians 3:1-3).  My advice in this case is the same as earlier.  Be aware of the problem.  The difference is that these texts will only be cleared up as you read and understand more and more of the Bible and gain greater maturity as you walk with Jesus.  The important principle for your present Bible study is that you read deeply enough that you know that you do not understand rather than repeating the words without thinking about them.

The third reason for word calling is a lack of personal connection to the ideas in the verse.  This is one of the easiest problems to solve.  Just remember to always try to form a connection between the text that you are reading and your own experiences.  For example, in the previous verses from First Corinthians, Paul spoke of not being ready for solid food.  This reminds me of raising my own children and how I anxiously watched to see if my baby was ready for me to start feeding her rice cereal.  I remember how at first, she did not know what to do with the white mushy stuff that I put in her mouth, and it would spill out onto her chin.  Then I would have to patiently spoon it off her chin and put it back into her mouth.  When I apply this memory to the verses, I can understand that as I grow in Christ, I will need to learn to process ideas that were impossible at first.  I understand that my learning may be a messy process, and that I might not get it right in the beginning.  By using my own experience to understand the verse, I can see deeper meanings and form more connections between ideas.  It is essential to form these connections between your own experiences and the text that you are reading for full comprehension; however, you need to be aware that your experiences may also interfere with understanding the text.  An obvious example is when the Bible speaks of our loving Father, but the reader’s experience has only been with an abusive father figure.  There can be more subtle problems also.  For example, when Paul speaks of braided hair in 1Timothy 2:9, he is not speaking of the simple pigtail braids that many young girls wear.  He is speaking of elaborate braided hairstyles worn by many pagan priestesses in his day.  If your only experience is with simple pigtails, you might misunderstand Paul’s intent.  Thus, we must personally connect with verses through the application of our own experiences to the meaning of the text, but we must also be aware that this process can interfere with understanding too.  Use your experiences to aid comprehension but be ready to modify your understanding based upon new experiences and information.

Word calling is a weakness that we all must overcome from time to time whether the reason is overfamiliarity, a lack of comprehension, or a lack of personal connection.  We will not always understand everything that we read in the Bible, but to comprehend more, we must go beyond mouthing the words to thinking about them.  Then we can take measures to increase our understanding.