“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.…”
The Book of Common Prayer
Weekly Readings
Our weekly readings can be found on the Episcopal Lectionary page
The 1536 foundational document of the Anglican Church says that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation. The Scriptures, comprised of the Old and New Testament, as well as some apocryphal texts, were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is of extraordinary importance to Episcopal worship; during a Sunday morning service, the congregation will usually hear at least three readings from scripture, and much of the liturgy from The Book of Common Prayer is based explicitly on the Biblical texts. According to the Catechism, “We understand the meaning of the Bible by the help of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in the true interpretation of the Scriptures” (p. 853-4, The Book of Common Prayer).
The translation of the Bible most commonly used during worship is the New Revised Standard Version (1990).
Other translations are also commonly used include:
- King James or Authorized Version (the historic Bible of The Episcopal Church)
- English Revision (1881)
- American Revision (1901)
- Revised Standard Version (1952)
- Jerusalem Bible (1966)
- New English Bible with the Apocrypha (1970)
- Good News Bible / Today’s English Version (1976)
- New American Bible (1970)
- Revised Standard Version, an Ecumenical Edition (1973)
- New International Version (1978)
- New Jerusalem Bible (1987)
- Revised English Bible (1989)
- Common English Bible (2012)
