Music theory and reading the Bible

One of the goals of my recent vacation was to spend more time reading the Bible (and other books!).   Here are some random things I discovered through my extended time in God's word.

First of all, I am no theologian or Bible scholar.  Although I attended some evening Bible school classes while living in New York, I have never studied anything extensively, although I wish I had. To compensate for this, I often ask the Lord to teach me things as I read.

Reading the Bible for me is often like analyzing a multi-movement instrumental work.  Let me try to explain this.  I am a music theorist and I actually like analyzing music for my own enjoyment (I know, now I sound like a geek!), although it is also part of my job when teaching at the conservatory. When I analyze a given movement or piece, I often look at several layers -- the small details (such as harmonic language, rhythmic patterns and the movement of the melody), larger gestures and then the bigger picture.  In the same way, I love re-reading familiar passages of scripture and scouring for new details.  I often read these aloud, going over them several times if necessary. When I examine less familiar (or forgotten!) passages, I read more quickly to try to get a grasp on the overall story or situation.

For example, this morning, I starting reading out of Matthew 8 -- passages that I heard about as a child in Sunday school and which I have read many times.  It dawned on me that Jesus healed many people who came to Him and first asked for healing.  However, He also healed those who came on behalf of someone else, for example, the centurion in Capernaum whose servant was sick. I also noticed the centurion's humble answer when Jesus agreed to come to his home -- the centurion said he wasn't worthy to receive such a visitor.  Jesus immediately claimed the servant healed and they parted ways.  Finally, I noticed that Jesus, upon entering Peter's home and seeing Peter's mother lying with fever, immediately touched and healed her (Matthew 8:14-15).

I asked God to speak to me about this passage so that I could practically apply the scripture to my own life.  Immediately, it dawned on me that according to the scriptures, Jesus never turned anyone away who asked for healing -- never.  The second thing that hit me is that I can ask for healing for others (this prompted me to immediately pray for a couple of sick people I know!), and finally, Jesus' compassion on noticing an ill person and healing without prompting reminded me of His infinite grace and compassion.  When I continued reading further in Matthew, I realized once again that we have been given this same mandate and authority to touch, pray for and heal others (eg. Matthew 10:8).  In fact, this is a recurring theme throughout the entire New Testament, quite in the same way that we see recurring themes in music, and therefore, we understand its significance for us today.

This post is getting long, so I think I will examine other analytical methods another day!  By the way, if you have ever studied Schenkerian music theory, you will recognize that my description of three layers comes from Schenker's concept of foreground, middleground and background respectively.  However, if you don't know anything about music theory, I hope you still enjoyed this post!

I would be curious to know how others read the Bible, so please feel free to comment below on your own strategies and methods!