Intentional Bible reading and transformative practice

Ian asked in a comment for an unpacking of an admittedly dense sentence in the previous post (in mitigation, it was written early morning though;) )

So I'll try to expand and explain. Those of us embedded in Scottish Baptist life recognise that we often make a strong claim to being a Bible believing people. Our devotion to Scripture is expressed in such characteristic ways as Bible study, preaching that is biblically rooted in exposition of the text, and testing of church practice, personal ethics and doctrinal conviction against the benchmark of Christ as revealed in Scripture. The place of such Christ-centred biblical commitment is historically and culturally pervasive in our spirituality and is all but unquestioned amongst Scottish Baptists. But we are prone to exaggerate such biblical devotion as an Evangelical or Baptist distinctive, at times being dismissive of the biblical rootedness of other traditions which may not claim to be either Baptist or Evangelical. Yet actual reading of Scripture, and practice of the Gospel in faithfulness to Christ, are as evident in other traditions as our own – so that at times we can sound painfully self-righteous. So we don't have a monopoly on such biblically oriented spirituality.

I suspect the more compacted clause is the first one though, and especially the phrase "transformative practice". I was thinking of how deliberate and regular consideration of Scripture, alone or even better in fellowship with others, leads to transformation. By prayer, study, reflection and application to life, the word again becomes flesh, embodied and active in Christ following action. The transformative power of Scripture is therefore pervasive and invasive, reaching both within us and beyond us, re-shaping Christian community to the form of Christ, and flowing outward in witness and service.

For example to encounter the words, "He has shown you human beings what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God", is to know ourselves addressed by God, called to change; it is to hear love's ultimatum, to recognise a sovereign invitation to grow through an inner reconfiguring of priorities, attitudes and responsiveness, that instigates in us and around us, new pattterns of behaviour. So not only the change in me, but as I am summoned by God's requirement to change and behave differently, I become an agent of mercy, an enthusiast for just acting, one who walks humbly with the God whose transformative Word disrupts and reconfigures my worldview. That's what I meant by "Intentional
Bible reading as spiritual discipline leading to transformative
practice".

As a matter of fact it would be an interesting experience for a Christian community to let that one Micah verse be the focus of attention, and through a process of communal discernment and intentional reading, ask the question;

Ask such a question seriously, work towards its answer with honesty and imagination, and sooner or later the Spirit of Christ translates intentional reading into transformative practice.