Who should read the Bible? What is the biblical word? How is Scripture to be interpreted? How is it to be prayed and lived? How does Scripture call forth the Church’s entire life and mission? In October 2008 the Synod on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church took place in Rome. During the synod the bishops addressed these questions on the significance of the Word in the life and mission of the church. Beginning with a helpful explanation of the synod process, James Chukwuma Okoye, CSSp, follows the synod in historical progression, highlighting important topics and issues along the way and concluding with an exposition of the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini, which Benedict XVI signed on September 30, 2010. Okoye emphasizes that the Synod on the Word of God was not just about Scripture’s function in the pastoral life of the church but it was also about tradition and God’s continuing self-disclosure in history and in the religions and cultures of humankind.
James Chukwuma Okoye, CSSp, is the Carroll Stuhlmueller Professor of Old Testament at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. His teaching and ministry place him among people of many diverse cultures. Okoye has been Provincial of his Nigerian Congregation of Spiritans and General Assistant in the Congregation’s headquarters in Rome. He was a member of the International Theological Commission and a peritus of the 1994 First Synod of Bishops for Africa.