BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen (Collect: Second Sunday in Advent)

The term "collect" is used for a short, precomposed prayer. Collects are used in the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist traditions, among others. This collect was composed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who raised the collect to an art form. It appeared in the very first Book of Common Prayer published in 1549. This prayer has been said by millions in our churches on the Second Sunday in Advent for over 450 years, and has also been passed on to other traditions. It is a jewel both theologically and in its literate way it expresses our hope in Christ which comes from a knowledge of Holy Writ.

Over the centuries, the Second Sunday in Advent became known as "Holy Scripture Sunday" because of this collect and the Epistle and Gospel appointed for the day, and by Victorian times, it was common to preach on Biblical authority in response to the rising tide of Higher Criticism which sought to explain away the Bible.

The authority of Scripture is at the very foundation of the Christian Faith. This collect deals with a right reading, use and understanding of the Bible as being requisite for a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We have many today who call themselves Anglican who deny that the Bible has any authority at all. But nothing could be untrue historically speaking than this currently popular idea that Anglicans are soft on the Bible.

First, the Anglican Reformers through whom we have received our tradition, were familiar with not only the Bible, but also with the Church Fathers. The Church Fathers had a very high view, what we would call an inerrant, view of the Bible and they believed that the Bible was written for all men.

St. John Chrysostom was one of the greatest of the Eastern Divines. His very name means "honey mouthed" because of his preaching skills. He said this about the Bible:

Therefore hath the grace of the Holy Spirit disposed and tempered them so, that publicans, and fishers, and tentmakers, shepherds, and the Apostles, and simple men, and unlearned, might be saved by these books; that none of the simpler sort might make excuse by the hardness of them; and that such things as are spoken might be easy for all men to look on; that the labouring man, and the servant, the widow woman, and whosoever is most unlearned, may take some good, when they are read. For they whom God ever from the beginning endued with the grace of his Spirit, have not gathered all these things for vain glory, as the heathen writers use, but for the salvation of the hearers.

St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the great divines of the Western Church expressed essentially the same attitude when he wrote:

Almighty God, in the Scriptures, speaketh as a familiar friend, without dissimulation, unto the hearts both of the learned and of the unlearned. He abaseth himself, and speaketh to their capacity; for his will is, that all should come to the knowledge of the truth, and be saved.

The Anglican Reformers passed on this very high view of Holy Scripture, and biblical scholarship and sought to place it in the hands of the ordinary people.

Thomas Cranmer is best known for his work on the Book of Common Prayer, but he also had a hand in the preparation of the Great Bible of 1540. The Great Bible was the first complete Bible translated into English and the first to be placed in every church for public reading. For the first time ordinary people in England could hear the Word of God. In the preface to this great work, Cranmer expressed the idea of the Bible as a basic tool for the Christian life when he stated:

Dost thou not mark and consider how the smith, mason, or carpenter, or any other handy craftsman, what need soever he be in, what other shift so ever he make, he will not sell nor lay to pledge the tools of his occupation. For then how should he work his feat, or get his living thereby? Of like mind and affection ought we to be towards holy Scripture. For as mallets, hammers, saws, chisels, axes, and hatchets, be the tools of their occupation; so be the books of the prophets, and Apostles, and all holy writers inspired by the Holy Ghost, the instruments of our salvation.

Wherefore let us not stick to buy and provide us the Bible, that is to say, the books of Holy Scripture; and let us think that to be a better jewel in our house than either gold or silver. For like as thieves be loath to assault an house where they know to be good armor and artillery, so wheresoever these holy ghostly books be occupied, there neither the devil nor none of his angels dare come near.

In the Tenth Homily, which dealt with "God's Word", Cranmer wrote:

...As many as be desirous to enter into the right and perfect way unto God, must apply their minds to know Holy Scripture; without the which, they can neither sufficiently know God and his will, neither their office and duty. And as drink is pleasant to them that be dry, and meat to them that be hungry; so is the reading, hearing, searching, and studying of Holy Scripture, to them that be desirous to know God, or themselves, and to do his will.

In the reign of Elizabeth I, The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion took their present shape and declared the authority of the Bible as rule of faith in Article VI:

Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation
HOLY Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

John Jewell was Cranmer's student, when he was Bishop of Salisbury he wrote this in what was titled An Essay on the Scriptures:

God saith, by the prophet Isaiah (55:11), "My word shall accomplish that which I will, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." And the same Prophet saith (11:8), "The word of God shall stand for ever." And "It is more easy that heaven and earth pass away, than that one tittle of the law should fail," saith our Saviour (Luke 16:17).

No force shall be able to decay it. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Cities shall fall; kingdoms shall come to nothing; empires shall fade away as the smoke; but the truth of the Lord shall continue forever. Burn it, it will rise again; kill it, it will live again; cut it down by the root, it will spring again. "There is no wisdom, neither understanding nor counsel against the Lord." (Prov. 21:30)

Early seventeenth century Archbishop Jeremy Taylor, in chapter IV of Holy Living - which is entiled "Reading or Hearing the Word of God" made these five points about Holy Scripture:

1. The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher in the world, and the words of Scripture the best sermons...
2. all the doctrine of salvation is plainly set down there, that the most unlearned person, by hearing it read, may understand all his duty. What can be plainer spoken than this, 'Thou shalt not kill'; 'Be not drunk with wine'; 'Husbands, love your wives'; 'What-soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them?' The wit of man cannot more plainly tell us our duty, or more fully, than the Holy Ghost bath done already.
3. good sermons and good books are of excellent use; but yet they can serve no other end but that we practice the plain doctrines of Scripture.
4. that Abraham in the parable said concerning the brethren of the rich man, is here very proper: 'They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them; but if they refuse to hear these, neither will they believe though one should arise from the dead to preach unto them.' (Luke xvi. 29, 31.)
5. reading the holy Scriptures is a duty expressly commanded us. (Luke xxiv. 45; Matt. xxii. 29; Acts xv. 21; 2 Tim. iii. 16; Rev. i. 3.)

Bishop J.C. Ryle was a prolific Anglican author of the late nineteenth century, during a time when the Bible was already under attack by the ancestors of the same forces with which we contend today. Let me share some of his thoughts with you so that we can see the continuity of thinking. This essay was written in 1880. Lest we think our present situation is new or unique, whenever Ryle mentions Great Britain, just substitute the United States and I think you will agree that nothing much has changed...

Next to praying there is nothing so important in practical religion as Bible-reading. God has mercifully given us a book which is "able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." (2 Tim. iii. 15.) By reading that book we may learn what to believe, what to be, and what to do; how to live with comfort, and how to die in peace. Happy is that man who possesses a Bible! Happier still is he who reads it! Happiest of all is he who not only reads it, but obeys it, and makes it the rule of his faith and practice!

Nevertheless it is a sorrowful fact that man has an unhappy skill in abusing God's gifts. His privileges, and power, and faculties, are all ingeniously perverted to other ends than those for which they were bestowed. His speech, his imagination, his intellect, his strength, his time, his influence, his money,-instead of being used as instruments for glorifying his Maker,-are generally wasted, or employed for his own selfish ends. And just as man naturally makes a bad use of his other mercies, so he does of the written Word. One sweeping charge may be brought against the whole of Christendom, and that charge is neglect and abuse of the Bible. To prove this charge we have no need to look abroad: the proof lies at our own doors. I have no doubt that there are more Bibles in Great Britain at this moment than there ever were since the world began. There is more Bible buying and Bible selling, more Bible printing and Bible distributing,-than ever was since England was a nation. We see Bibles in every bookseller's shop,- Bibles of every size, price, and style; Bibles great, and Bibles small,-Bibles for the rich, and Bibles for the poor. There are Bibles in almost every house in the land. But all this time I fear we are in danger of forgetting, that to have the Bible is one thing, and to read it quite another.

In conclusion, we are told that if we seek to "embrace, and ever hold fast, [to] the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ", we "should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the Bible".

The Bible is not some ceremonial object or a place to press flowers or keep old photos. It is not a coffee table decoration. It is the Book of Books. All understanding begins with picking it up and actually reading what it says. The priest who was my mentor used to say that when he visited homes he often saw a Bible on the coffee table. He told me that one of the simple tests he performed was to move it and see if there was dust around it on the table. In other words, had anyone picked it up lately.

Next we are to "mark" Scripture. The mark something is to identify it. We speak of marking a ballot, or a "marked" man. People used to say something was important by saying, "mark this well." And so on. Make note of important verses.

Then we are to learn Scripture. To learn something is to turn it into useful knowledge. As a child, I "learned" the multiplication tables so that I could use them to solve math problems. Most Christians who take their faith seriously will learn the broad outline of the Bible and even eventually commit many passages to memory and thus be able to use these in everyday life.

Finally Cranmer calls upon us to "inwardly digest" Holy Scripture:

When I eat food and digest it, it becomes a part of me. It provides nourishment and sustains life itself. To "digest" the Bible is to use it as a sustaining "spiritual food" for the soul and the body. Cranmer wrote that "The Bible is a book that is not for mere reading. It is a book for studying so that it can be applied. Otherwise, it is like swallowing food down without chewing and then spitting it back out again.

Or as the Bible says: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).

II Timothy 3:16 states that the Bible is "God-breathed." In other words, it is God's Word to us. There are so many questions that philosophers and people have asked that God answers for us in Scripture: What is the purpose to life? Where did I come from? Is there life after death? What happens after death? Why is the world full of evil? Why do we struggle to do good and want to do bad? In addition to these "big" questions, the Bible gives practical advice in areas such as: How to look for in a mate; how to have a successful marriage; how to be a good parent; how to be a good friend; what is true success and how does a person achieve it? What ultimately matters in life? How does a person live so as to not carry a burden of guilt through life and always look back with regret? How can I please God? How can people handle the unfair circumstances and bad events of life and live victoriously? The answers are found in God's Word. I urge you to read the Bible!

BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.