How to Prepare to Read a Bible Passage in Public
by Laurence Hull Stookey, Hugh Latimer Elderdice Professor of Preaching and Worship
Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, DC

If you have been asked to serve as a lector--one who reads scripture aloud as a part of a service of worship--you are charged with the task of communicating the sacred writings of the church to those present in a way that best enables them to discover God’s message to us today. This is no small undertaking. Here are steps to follow in preparing for the task.

(1) Begin with prayer. Ask God to enlighten you by the power of the Holy Spirit that you may understand how the Word is addressing this congregation on this occasion through this passage. Then ask that through your public reading you may convey that meaning to the people of God so that all may grasp the message.

(2) Next, read the assigned passage in several versions to get the flavor of various ways the text can be rendered into English. Use current and reliable translations Under no circumstances should you accept as authoritative paraphrases such as The Living Bible (its paraphraser knew neither Hebrew nor Greek and consulted nothing translated into English after 1611; he frequently added into the paraphrase his own explanations, not found in the original manuscripts.) Also, avoid translations that deliberately use a very restricted English vocabulary for the sake of the young or those with English as a second language. If you are reading aloud to persons in either of these categories, you may choose a restricted vocabulary edition for the actual public reading; but in order to understand the passage fully you need to consult more ample translations beforehand.  If you know Hebrew or Greek, by all means consult these original languages first; but particularly if you do not know them, compare several English translations.

(3) If a specific translation has been designated for public use, then prepare that one for reading aloud. Otherwise, from among the various reliable English translations you have looked at choose the one that seems to be most easily read aloud and/or most clear to the listener.

(4) Get firmly in mind the basic meaning and tone of the passage. Is this a story, a song, an exhortation, a warning, a parable, a list of virtues or ancestors, and so on? The nature of the passage will help you determine how best to interpret it aloud.

(5) Look particularly at how the passage begins. Does some explanation need to be given as to what precedes this passage in the book in which it is found? If so, write out the explanation. For example, perhaps your reading begins “Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John ....” (Matt. 17.1a).  Your listener may be asking, “Six days later than what?” So you may want to begin by saying “Today’s reading begins nearly a week after Peter at Caesarea Philippi has identified Jesus as the Messiah.” Then proceed: “Six days later, etc.” Alternatively, you could decide simply to delete the first three words of the passage but first check with the preacher, who may intend in the sermon to establish a dear link between Peter’s great affirmation at Caesarea Philippi and his somewhat erratic behavior on the Mount of Transfiguration.

Sometimes a passage begins with a group of pronouns with unclear antecedents, for example: “Now he said to them.. . .” Who said to whom? Here you can also proceed in one of two ways.

(i) Write out a brief introduction such as this: “In today’s reading Jesus is talking to his twelve disciples.” [Pause] “Now he said to them…”

(ii) Or you may make a substitution of nouns for pronouns within the passage itself “Now Jesus said to his disciples…”

(6) Similarly, there may be a need for noun-pronoun substitution further along within the passage. Consider this portion of the burning bush passage:

When the LORD saw that he [Moses] turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

And he said, “‘Here am I.”

Then he said, “Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

And he said, “I am....”

It is easy to suppose that we have here a reciprocating dialogue: The first “he said” refers to Moses, who is answering God; the second “he said” refers to God, and the third “he said" returns the conversation to Moses. But this is not the case. God has two speeches in a row, so that the order is not God, Moses, God, Moses but God, Moses, God, God.  If using the above text (RSV) it is almost necessary to help the listener by supplying the noun in the place of the pronoun in the last instance: “And God said, ‘I am…’"  The NRSV remedies the confusion by introducing the second consecutive speech by God with the word “further” (not found in the Hebrew): “He said further, ‘I am. . . .’” (Exodus 3:4-6)

In a number of Gospel passages when Jesus is talking to a male, there is the recurring phrase “he said.” The listener who is not thoroughly familiar with the dialogue can readily get lost. Hence to substitute “Jesus” or “the man” for “he” can be very helpful in oral use. (A person reading the Bible, if confused, can go back, reread the passage, and figure the sequence out; but a listener does not have this luxury. So the lector needs to assist the hearer in every possible way, anticipating places at which listeners may become confused.)

(7) A bit trickier is the matter of convoluted sentences that can be unscrambled by readers but may leave listeners befuddled. Possibly the prize winner in this category is the single sentence that comprises Ephesians 1:15-23:

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the mints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Yes, that is all one sentence, both in Greek and in the RSV, quoted here! It is a great challenge to the lector, and if you are asked to read in public this version (or the KJV, or many others like them), I recommend great preparation and familiarity. Once again the NRSV has departed from the original language by dividing this passage into four sentences in order to help us. But even the NRSV reading is complex. (Only recently have translators given much attention to the challenges that may face the lector or the listener. Earlier translators were so determined to be utterly faithful to the Hebrew and Greek that often they neglected to ask, “How easily can this be to read aloud?” “How readily can a listener grasp its meaning?”) Therefore read carefully through the entire passage several times in the translation you will use and search out portions that may be difficult for you to read.

(8) Difficulties may have to do not only with complexities of language structure, but with particular sequences of sounds in a rather uncomplicated sentence. “Those who believe shall be saved” is a straightforward sentence. But it can too easily comes out as “Those who believe shall be shaved.” (Remember the challenge of saying, “She sells sea shells by the sea shore”?) Anticipate as many problem points as possible, and work to overcome the potential difficulties.

(9) Note carefully the punctuation, and what it implies for the lector. Observe the placement of the comma in this familiar sentence:

So they [the shepherds] went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.

More than once I have heard it misread this way:

So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child [pause] lying in the manger.

This produces unintended humor as the listener envisions two adults and an infant crowded into that feeding trough! The vocal pause must come after “Joseph” with the words “and the child lying in the manger” read without any internal pause. Probably also the pitch of the voice will shift slightly (either downward or upward) after the comma.

(10) If your church does not have a prescribed way of announcing each reading, plan the way in which you will introduce the passage: “Our first reading is Exodus 3, verses 1 through 12”; ‘Today’s Gospel is from Mark’s account at the beginning of chapter 9.” Such an introduction should be as concise as possible. Be certain you pronounce the name of the book correctly:

Deu­ter‑on‑o‑my, not Deu‑ter‑om‑o‑ny

Job (rhymes with robe, not with rob)

The Revelation, not Revelations or The Revelations

If the name of the book could be confused with some other book of the Bible, practice speaking distinctively enough that people can understand whether you have said “Zechariah” or “Zephaniah” for example.

(11) You may now decide that rather than reading from a book, you will type out the passage in a way that particularly suits you. You may decide to do this in order to have larger type than can be found in most printed Bibles and/or because you wish to arrange the words in a form conducive to following them without getting lost.  While typing out a script may seem like a poor use of time, in fact doing this act yourself will solidify the passage in your mind, and this also may enable you to make specific decisions about how you will speak the words aloud.

Here are some specific recommendations, if you decide to go this route. [If you are going to read from a printed book you may now skip to Suggestion 12.]

(a) Do not type the passage out in all uppercase letters [LIKE THIS] on the theory that using more ink will make the material easier to see. In fact, using all upper case letters destroys helpful word contours formed by letters that go above or below the main line of type: b, d, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, p, q, t, and y. [For more specifics see a separate handout entitled “The Use of Lowercase and Uppercase Fonts for Reading Material.”]

(b) Make the width of the printed copy four inches or less. There is a reason why almost all pulpit Bibles and many personal Bibles divide the text into two columns per page, not one.

When reading aloud, the goal is to allow the eye to go down the page to a greater degree than to go across the page. When you finish reading aloud one line and go to the next, if the line of type is too broad your eye may end up at the wrong place (either above or below the correct next line); then the reading will make no sense and the reader will get confused. This is particularly apt to happen if two lines of type begin at the left with the same word:

Suppose you are reading a passage that includes a series of things: faith, love, hope, and joy, for example. But the next line of type contains a statement about sin and its destructive character. Your eye, knowing it is looking for an “and” at the end of Line 1 may skip a line inadvertently and fall on Line 3 rather than line 2. Thus you find yourself reading about “faith, love, hope, and its destructive character.”

Once you become thus confused it is difficult to recover your composure! The narrower the line of type, the less danger of getting to the wrong line when you “wrap around” from the right margin to the left.

(c) Disregard the common convention (called “justification of lines”) in which all lines of begin at the same place in the left margin, and perhaps end at the same place in the right margin. Typing out the material allows you to use “sense lines” instead.

(d) Bearing in mind (a), (b), and (c), you do well to now type out the material in sense lines, arranging the words on the page in such a way that your eye moves down the page and can recognize at once how words are related to each other. Compare the two versions of Galatians 5:19-23 below.

The form of the right column greatly reduces the risk of getting lost in those long lists of vices and virtues. Also in the right column the likelihood of getting lost is lessened by inserting space between every few lines in the list of vices, so that the listing is not seven lines long without a visual break

If you type out your own version of the passage for reading, use whatever line arrangements seem to you the most clear. Also, you can adjust punctuation according to your own needs, so long as the meaning of the passage is not altered thereby.

If your typed version of the text is more than one page, punch holes in it and place it in a ringed binder. Loose sheets easily get out of order, or one may fall to the floor while you are using the other. Even if you are using only a single sheet, you may want to place it in a binder; this ensures that a gust of air will not blow it away.

(12) If reading from a printed book, be certain you have the page well marked and that you know where the passage begins and where it ends. Adhesive note tags are a boon for this purpose

(13) Now work on the emphasis you wish to give to the reading in order to communicate the meaning of the passage. [See separate handout entitled “In Contrast to What?”] Emphasize only the words that are of most importance. Emphasizing too many words results in a sensory overload for the listener, so that nothing is gained.

In particular be aware of the understanding of God you proclaim in passages that are negative in tone. If Jesus words, “Woe to you...” are said with harshness and even anger, a vindictive God is proclaimed.  But suppose that instead Jesus is expressing disappointment and frustration at the faithlessness of the people. Then God is proclaimed as being disappointed in us rather than vengeful--surely a picture of God more in line with the overall message of the Gospels.

(14) Rehearse in a way that is comfortable to you. Some people feel at ease doing this at home; others want to practice at the place where the reading will take place. Some readers practice by saying the words aloud as they will the service of worship.  Others feel awkward speaking aloud in an empty room but find it quite possible to “think out” their vocal expressions; that  is, without uttering a sound they can hear in their imaginations when they will change pitch, when they will pause, what words they will emphasize, and so on. There is no single correct way to rehearse. Do what suits your personality.

(15) However, the first time you are reading in a particular location, it is well to become familiar beforehand with the mechanical aspects of the space: How much lighting will there be? Does the stand on which the Bible or your notebook rests have an appropriate tilt that avoids glare? Are there steps that you must negotiate on your way to and from place where your stand to read? Is the reading desk adjustable in height? If not, how can you deal with a furnishing that is too high or low for you? This is not only a matter of how short or tall you are in relation to the furniture but also a matter of how far away the book is from your eyes in relation to your own optimal focal length (I happen to be 6’2” tall, but very farsighted, therefore I need the book as far away from my eyes as possible. For me, the lower the reading desk the better.)

(16) Be particularly aware of the acoustical properties of the room in which you are to read. Some rooms are very reverberant, then particular care must be taken not to speak too quickly and to articulate consonants carefully, especially at the ends of words. The acoustics of a room will change with the number of people in it the density of clothing they wear. A large congregation bring woolen outer coats in the winter absorbs much more sound than a small congregation in the same room on a hot day. In the winter setting there will be less reverberation but you will also need to speak more loudly. Note two things in particular about volume.

(a) In English, we indicate the conclusion of a thought by dropping the pitch of the voice. The pitch tends to descend more at the end of a paragraph than at the end of a sentence, and most of all it descends at the very close of the passage being read. This is normal and acceptable. What creates a problem is that often when the pitch descends the volume also lessens. Thus the closing words of a passage may become inaudible. Keep the volume up even when the pitch goes down. Failure to do this is one of the greatest barriers to effective oral communication.

(b) A public address system can do only so much.  It amplifies only what it hears. Therefore a drop in volume such as that just discussed cannot be compensated for, even by the most sophisticated PA system in the world.

(17) Ask the person who operates the PA system how close or far you need to stand from the microphone, or where it needs to be attached to your clothing if a clip-on mike is used. Ideally, someone at a remote location will be adjusting the controls to appropriate levels as you speak. If, instead, the controls are fixed, check immediately before the worship service to be certain they are set correctly If you are wearing a clip-on microphone, know how and when to turn it on and off. If you fad to turn it off when you have finished reading, the congregation may hear you singing a “solo” during the next hymn!

(18) Reckon with anxiety. Unless you are a very experienced public speaker, it is likely that you will experience it. Anxiety may express itself in ways known only to you (sweaty palms, a knot in your stomach, knocking knees). But it may also express itself in ways evident to your hearers; common of these are:

(a) Useless and possibly very distracting gestures- continually adjusting your eyeglasses when they really need no adjustment, pulling on your earlobe, shifting your weight from one leg to the other, so that the congregation nearly gets seasick watching you weave from side to side.

(b) Elevation of pitch in your speaking voice, so that you speak several musical notes above your conversational tone. Usually the voice is also very tight in such instances, and expression is greatly diminished. You actually sound scared.

(c) Rapidity of speech. Your anxious mind tricks you into thinking that time is dragging. You may be reading so rapidly the congregation cannot keep pace; yet you think that you or reading at a normal or even a quite slow rate.

The best defense against undue anxiety is adequate preparation. If well-prepared, likely after a few seconds of “start-up anxiety,” you will settle in and become quite comfortable. "Start-up anxiety" may be diminished by taking a couple of deep breaths before beginning your reading. Breathe deeply, stand tall, address the congregation visually, and then begin.

(19) While it is well to look at the congregation before you start to read, it is not necessary to keep looking up at them throughout the reading. You are reading, not giving a sermon (where eye contact is highly desirable). Looking up from the book creates the risk that when you look back down, you will have lost your place. Then you will become befuddled, and anxiety will take over with a vengeance. If looking at the congregation occasionally (at the end of each paragraph, for example) is natural for you, fine. But do not try to force yourself to do it. And do not attempt to memorize the scriptures and recite them without reference to the page. A lector is a reader, not an actor on the stage.

(20) Finally, trust God. The Holy Spirit loves diligent preparation, and rewards those who engage in it!

This paper is prepared for the benefit of the church and may be photocopied and distributed at will by those who train lectors in local congregations, provided (a) no fee is charged at such training events, and (b) this paper in part or whole is not published in any document to be sold.