My son, do not forget my teaching, 
but keep my commands in your heart, 
for they will prolong your life many years 
and bring you peace and prosperity. 

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; 
bind them around your neck, 
write them on the tablet of your heart. 
Then you will win favour and a good name 
in the sight of God and man. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart 
and lean not on your own understanding; 
in all your ways submit to him, 
and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:1-6) 

Having done some thinking last week about why we sing hymns in assemblies, this week I want to think about why it is we usually have a Bible reading on Fridays. Let’s start with a quick game: I’m going to read out some sentences which may or may not be from the Bible – you have to choose the ones that are. 

• Neither a borrower nor a lender be. (Not from the Bible – it’s from Shakespeare.) 
• Go the extra mile. (Yes – from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.) 
• Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. (Yes – from Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve are told they will become mortal.) 
• All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. (Not from the Bible, but a saying of Julian of Norwich, whose statue is at the West Doors.) 
• Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them round your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. (Yes, that was from the reading we had a moment ago. It’s from the book of Proverbs, one of the passage printed in the back of our hymn boo

Well done if you managed to guess the sentences that were from the Bible. A few things we can learn from that game: 

• The Bible contains a lot of wisdom that has passed into the English language, though we may not realise it. Turning the other cheek; the writing’s on the wall; the salt of the earth; you reap what you sow; there’s a time and a place for everything. These and many more expressions all started in some thought-provoking part of the Bible. 
• The Bible is not the only place that we can go to get wisdom. Saints, celebrities, Shakespeare and other scriptures have lines for us to ponder too. 
• What the Bible gives us, though – and this is really how we use it in our Friday assemblies – is a regular nudge in the right direction. 

We live in a world where there are all kinds of things trying to nudge us in all sorts of directions. For instance, “Drink Coca Cola.” “Click on the link to find out more.” “I dare you. Go on, I dare you!” Some of the nudges around you are good and well-intentioned, and hopefully that’s true at school, where you hear from speakers, PPD lessons, and calendar events like LGBTQ+ History Month (which you heard about in here on Wednesday). But I only need to mention a few other things, like hard-sell advertising or unrelenting phone notifications, for you to realise that you need to filter what’s coming at you. 

We listen to Bible passages week by week because these are nudges in the right direction. 

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them round your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” That’s decent advice – hear it and go with it. Whatever’s going on for you on this particular Friday, be a loving, caring, faithful person – and you won’t go far wrong. 

I’ve played a little bit of golf – not much, and I’m not especially good at it. When I have played, it has usually been in a group. I think I’ve played alongside basically two different types of people. One type of person wants to give me a constant stream of advice about how I should be standing differently, what’s wrong with my swing, how I’ve got the wrong sort of clubs, and so on. To be honest, I find it difficult playing with people like that because it’s a bit overwhelming. 

But there’s another type of fellow golfer who, now and again, will just mention something. I know one person in particular who is like a golf-whisperer. He will stand to one side while I take a practice swing, and then say something like – ‘Just try lifting your chin up a bit’. And I will take his advice, and it works – because he’s a good enough golfer (and a good enough teacher) to see the thing I need to focus on. 

Listening to regular Bible passages can be like listening to that second type of golfer. Many of the people who read the world’s bestselling book read it in short chunks, but regularly. And they find (as I find) that it can have just the right thing to say. On the occasion when anger or ambition or irritation is getting the better of me, the Bible reminds me to be loving and faithful; and to trust God, even if I can’t quite see where my life is leading. When we’re getting a bit wild or loose, the Bible can help us keep our shape; the Bible is a kind of life-whisperer. Something to keep in mind whenever you hear it read in assembly.