How is the Bible used in worship? What new liturgical forms can the Bible generate when feminist interpretations of Scripture shed fresh light on old liturgical habits? By exploring these questions, Elizabeth Smith challenges liturgical practitioners to pay fruitful attention to what feminist biblical studies now offer the worshiping Church.

In Smith provides a bridge between two worlds: (1) the world of academic biblical studies and (2) the world of the leaders and worshipers in the liturgical Churches. She argues that the texts of liturgy need to be better informed by contemporary biblical scholarship, particularly in its feminist manifestations.

Smith begins by examining the nature of liturgical worship, the needs of worshipers, and the coming of feminism to liturgical awareness. Using the work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Sandra M. Schneiders as examples, she describes two main approaches to feminist biblical interpretation. Between these sometimes complementary, sometimes conflicting approaches to hermeneutics the liturgical user of the Bible will find a great deal of new insight.

Smith devotes a chapter to each of the four key liturgical forms: Lectionaries, sermons, prayers, and hymns. Beginning with the primary users of each chapter's liturgical form, she shows how to make the interpretive connection between biblical text, liturgical text, and worshiping community. Examples of the new Lectionaries, sermons, prayers, and hymns that may be created by this process are also described. Smith concludes with metaphorical sketches of the biblical, liturgical environment as classroom, playground, refuge, and kitchen.

Bearing Fruit in Due Season will help college or seminary students see how close the connection can be between the critical study of Scripture by the few and the practical, devotional, liturgical use of Scripture by the many.

Chapters are "Christians at Worship, and What They Seek," "The Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics: A Survey of Some Approaches," "Bible Readings and the Lectionary in Worship," "Biblical Interpretation and Preaching in Worship," "Biblical Language and Prayers in Worship," "The Bible in Hymns,"and "Conclusion."

Elizabeth J. Smith earned her PhD from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. She is a parish priest at St. John's Anglican Church near Melbourne, Australia, and a member of the General Synod Liturgical Commission for the Anglican Church of Australia.