Kierkegaard who, in direct contrast to Luther, regarded the first chapter of James as his favourite bit of the Bible (Journals & Papers, Vol.6, p.416) says a lot about reading God's Word as God's Word, in his book 'For Self-Examination' p.11-51. (All refs and quotes are from the Hong's 1990 ed. ). In this book Kierkegaard lays down three principles in answer to the question he poses:
"What is required in order to look at oneself with true blessing in the Mirror of the Word?'
"The first requirement is that you must not look at the mirror, observe the mirror, but must see yourself in the mirror." (p.25)
"The second requirement is that in order to see yourself in the mirror when you read God's Word you must (so that you actually do come to see yourself in the mirror) remember to say to yourself incessantly: It is I to whom it it is speaking; it is I about whom it is speaking." (p.35)
"Finally, if you want to look at yourself in the mirror with true blessing, you must not promptly forget how you looked, you must not be the forgetful hearer (or reader) of whom the apostle says: He looked at his bodily face in a mirror but promptly forgot how he looked." (p.44)
Along the way Kierkegaard has some memorable advice:
"Alone with God's Word ... seeing oneself in the mirror. ... we should not look at the mirror but see ourselves in the mirror. If you are a scholar, remember that if you do not read God's Word in another way, it will turn out that after a lifetime of reading God's Word many hours every day, you nevertheless have never read - God's Word." (p.32-33)
At the end of this post I must mention Richard Bauckham's commentry on 'James' (1999) which first drew my attention to Kierkegaard's book.
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