Restoring Apostolic Faith

It is not an uncommon thing in today’s church that I hear a pastor’s use of scripture or reference be outside the actual context. If I have a relationship with them, I do what the modern culture deems appropriate—send an Email.

Not because I am offended. Not because I want to be “that guy.” But because he said something that wasn’t quite right biblically—nothing heretical, just one of those phrases that sounds fine unless you know the text and context. I knew what he meant, but I also knew people might walk away thinking something Scripture never actually says. So I write a gracious note: “I think I know what you intended, but here’s how many probably heard it, and here’s why the wording matters.”

I remember once, as I hit send, a simple realization landed with more weight than usual: in the first-century church, I would never have needed email.

Because back then, Scripture wasn’t a decorative opener for a speech. Scripture was the main event. It was read aloud—fully, reverently—to a gathered people who understood that hearing together was how faith took root. And after the reading, there was room to respond. Respectful questions. Clarifications. Even gentle correction. Not to embarrass the teacher, but to protect the truth and the people learning it. Read → Hear → Discuss → Obey. That was the rhythm.

Somewhere along the way, we traded dialogue around Scripture for monologue about Scripture. And our faith has thinned accordingly.

Let’s trace what changed, and why recovering the sound of Scripture is not optional if we want robust, apostolic faith again.

Church Used to Sound Different

In synagogue life—the soil out of which the church grew—the order was straightforward: the Scriptures were read aloud, then explained, and the community responded. Nehemiah 8 gives the template: Ezra reads from the Book of the Law “distinctly,” the Levites explain the sense, and the people understand (Nehemiah 8:8). It’s public, audible, accountable. No one confuses personality with authority; the text is the authority, voiced into the life of the people.

Jesus steps into that exact pattern in Nazareth. He “entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read” (Luke 4:16). Isaiah is handed to Him; He reads, rolls up the scroll, sits—the posture of authoritative teaching—and then offers a brief, explosive interpretation: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Notice the emphasis: in your hearing. Not in your private study. Not in your latest devotion plan. In the shared act of a community listening to God.

Paul moves in the same rhythm. In Pisidian Antioch, “the reading of the Law and the Prophets” comes first; only then do the synagogue rulers invite a “word of exhortation” (Acts 13:15). Paul’s “sermon” isn’t a stand-alone motivational piece; it is an exposition tethered to the text just read, delivered in a space where questions and pushback are expected (compare Acts 17:2–4; Acts 19:8–9).

This is why the earliest Christian gatherings prioritized the public reading of Scripture. Paul doesn’t say, “Make sure you preach your best life now.” He says, “Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching” (1 Timothy 4:13). Reading is first; exhortation and teaching flow from the read Word, not over it.

Scripture Wasn’t a Sermon Topic. It Was the Sermon.

In the apostolic churches, entire letters were read aloud—start to finish. Paul charges the Thessalonians, “I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters” (1 Thessalonians 5:27). To the Colossians: “When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16). John’s Apocalypse opens with a blessing split between one reader and many hearers: “Blessed is the one who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it” (Revelation 1:3). One voice, many ears, shared obedience.

By the mid-second century, Justin Martyr can describe a familiar Sunday pattern: “The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has finished, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.” The point is simple—Scripture leads; instruction follows. The gravity sits on the text, not the teacher. The teacher’s task is to make the read Word plain, not to outshine it.

We’ve drifted. Many modern services center on a message with Scripture sprinkled like garnish. A compelling story, a few well-chosen verses, an emotional arc, and a call to action. Is that always wrong? No. Can God use it? Of course. But the underlying structure trains us to depend on the personality and style of the preacher rather than the sound of the Scriptures. And whatever we rely on functionally becomes our authority.

Letters Were Performed, Not Privatized

The first Christians didn’t own Bibles. Scrolls were expensive; codices were precious. Most believers were illiterate, which didn’t hinder them in the least—because the church did not equate spiritual maturity with private literacy, but with faithful hearing and obedient living. Faithful hearing required a faithful reader: someone trained to voice the text clearly from scriptio continua (continuous script without punctuation or spacing) and to do so in a community that knew the Scriptures by sound.

That last phrase matters. By sound. When you hear a passage read repeatedly, it inscribes itself into your memory differently than silent reading does. You can’t “word-search” a live voice. You submit to the pace, the cadence, the rhetoric of the author. You absorb paragraphs, not fragments. You catch tone because you are forced to listen long enough for tone to emerge. A thousand proof texts can’t substitute for deep exposure to the whole.

This is also why communal reading helped stabilize the text itself. The more a church read a Gospel or an apostolic letter aloud, the more that text became a shared possession—its contours fixed in community memory. A wayward copy or manipulative spin had to pass through the gate of the community’s ears. If it sounded off, it was corrected in the room, not in a distant committee.

After the Reading? Dialogue—Not Silence.

The New Testament’s word for these post-reading moments is telling: διαλέγομαι (dialegomai)—to dialogue, to reason together. Luke uses it for Paul’s ministry repeatedly (Acts 17:2; 18:4; 19:8–9). It’s the word in Acts 20 for that long night in Troas. Paul didn’t unleash a marathon monologue; he entered a marathon dialogue. People asked questions. He clarified. He answered objections. He tied the read Scriptures to Christ and to their lives. He prepared them to stand once he sailed.

Does that ever get messy? Of course. Dialogue requires humility, patience, and leaders who aren’t allergic to being questioned. But “messy” is not the same as “unfaithful.” A lively conversation tethered to the text is far safer than a polished oration that no one can test. The former builds maturity; the latter invites personality-driven dependence.

We have trained congregations to be polite and quiet. Polite has its place. Quiet does not, when clarity is needed. In the ancient pattern, hearing together came with implied permission to seek understanding—on the spot. “Is that what the text says?” is not rebellion; it is loyalty to the Word.

The Cost of Losing Dialogue — Faith Comes by Hearing

Paul’s line is precise: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). He is not making a poetic point about “being spiritually attentive.” He is describing the actual mechanism God used to generate faith in communities—the Word is read aloud; the people hear; understanding and obedience follow.That is the hermeneutical structure baked into Christian formation.

Hearing in Scripture is never bare acoustics. The Hebrew shema—“Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4)—means, “listen so that you obey.” The Greek akoē (hearing) carries that same moral weight: hearing that issues in response. So when the first Christians heard the Scriptures read, they were not spectators. They were participants. They expected to digest what they heard together—asking, answering, adjusting, repenting, encouraging.

Illiteracy did not weaken their faith; it strengthened their unity. Because truth carried in the voice of the brother or sister next to you is hard to privatize and easy to remember. The same lines, week after week, become part of the community’s bloodstream. And that corporate memory inhibits error. If a teacher tilts the interpretation beyond what the text will bear, the room knows. Someone raises a hand. “Walk me through that from the passage again.”

Now compare that to much of our present practice. We have an overabundance of translations, podcasts, and platforms, but less Scripture heard and digested together. We have services built around well-crafted speeches designed to stir good feelings, and we sometimes call the feelings “faith.” They aren’t. Faith isn’t generated by being moved; it is nurtured by hearing Christ’s Word and submitting to it—together. When the reading disappears and dialogue is discouraged, we don’t just lose a tradition; we lose the very pathway Paul gave for faith to grow.

If our churches rarely read whole chapters aloud, rarely let the text breathe without commentary, rarely permit questions in the room, we should not be surprised by brittle faith and shallow discipleship. We are feeding people with the aroma of bread and wondering why no one is full.

What We Can Recover—Without Chaos

No one is lobbying for a free-for-all. The ancient pattern was ordered. There were readers (lectors) recognized for competence. There were elders who guarded the conversation and ensured things stayed tethered to the text. There was reverence for Scripture, not performative debate.

We can move in that direction without burning our current structures to the ground. Start small, start steady, and let the Word do the heavy lifting:

Read more Scripture, not less. Make time in the gathering for whole sections, not just a verse. Read an entire psalm, a full chapter, or even a short letter in one sitting (start with Philippians or 1 Thessalonians). Let people hear an author’s argument, not only a preacher’s outline.

Let the text stand before it is explained. Silence right after the reading can feel like a spiritual reset—space for the Word to land before any human voice steps in to steer it.

Invite short, guided dialogue. After the reading, allow two or three brief questions, with the explicit goal of clarity, not performance. “What in the passage was hard to follow?” “Where did the author’s meaning hinge?” “Which phrase surprised you?” Set boundaries (two minutes per question, not a back-and-forth), but make room for the body to engage.

Train readers. Reading ancient-style prose well takes practice. Pacing, breath, emphasis, and pronunciation shape comprehension. A trained reader is a theological gift to a church.

Shepherd tone, not just content. The goal of dialogue is understanding that leads to obedience. Leaders can model humble confidence: “Let’s look at the verse again. Here’s why we landed where we did. If we’ve missed something, we want to see it.”

Return Scripture to the center of the room. Literally. Place the reading where it cannot be treated as preface or perfunctory. Build the gathering around it. Let exhortation serve what was read, not overshadow it.

Will every context allow mid-service questions? Maybe not. Then give the text the lion’s share of time and host a post-service 15-minute Scripture forum in the same room. Keep it crisp. Keep it tethered. Make it normal.

Why This Isn’t Nostalgia

The call to recover hearing and dialogue is not a romantic reach for “the good old days.” It’s obedience to explicit apostolic instruction (“give attention to the public reading of Scripture,” 1 Timothy 4:13), alignment with the apostolic pattern (letters read to the whole church, 1 Thessalonians 5:27; Colossians 4:16), and participation in the blessing God promises to the reader and the hearers (Revelation 1:3). It’s also practical wisdom. Communities that hear the same Word together, week after week, become resilient. They are harder to blow off course by charisma, novelty, or outrage cycles. They learn to love the text more than the talk.

It will feel different. It may feel slower. Good. Christian maturity is slow-cooked. The oven is called habit.

Final Thought — The Night Paul Didn’t Preach a Sermon

For years I stumbled over Acts 20. Paul “talked” with the believers in Troas until midnight; a young man fell asleep in the window, fell to his death, was raised, and then Paul “talked a long while, until daybreak, and then left” (Acts 20:7–11). I honestly wondered, What on earth was his sermon about? Eight hours?

That question gave me away. I was imagining a modern sermon: a stage, a polished arc, three points and a poem. But Luke doesn’t say Paul “preached” all night. He says Paul dialegomai—dialogued. He reasoned with them. He answered questions. He clarified Scripture. He set the screws gently but firmly so that the roof would hold when he sailed away. It wasn’t performance. It was formation.

I missed that until hermeneutics recalibrated my expectations—until I remembered that the church was born in the sound of Scripture read aloud and the humility of saints reasoning together beneath it. That is also why I keep pushing for a return to apostolic faith. Not nostalgia. Not contrarianism. A simple insistence that we practice the things that actually produce durable believers:

Open the Scriptures.

Hear them together.

Ask real questions.

Receive clear answers.

Obey—together.

Faith was born that way once.

It can be again.

A Modest Proposal for Next Sunday

If you’re a pastor or elder: choose one gathering in the next month and give Scripture 15 more minutes than usual. Read a whole chapter—before the message. Then take two sincere questions on what was read. That’s it. No fireworks. Just oxygen. Watch what happens.

If you’re a member: ask, kindly, for more Scripture in the room. Offer to help as a trained reader. After service, gather two households and read a whole letter aloud at the table. Ask one question each. Keep it focused, keep it kind, keep it tethered.

This is not hard. It is simply different. But it’s how the church learned to hear God in the beginning. And if we recover the sound of Scripture, we may just recover the substance of our faith.