It occurred to me lately that the way I have been reading the bible doesn’t connect with who I am as a person and the ways in which I learn. I think this comes from the way we tend to read or study the bible in community. We tend to look at scripture one verse, one section, or one chapter at a time.
A related thought that keeps coming up is that the bible is not a collection of timeless truths or nuggets of wisdom. Although such things can be found in scripture, I think it is much more. It is about a story. A story of love, history, and the interaction between God and his people.
I have been longing lately to read scripture looking at the people, places and conflicts. Isn’t this what great stories are about in the first place? You don’t read the Brothers Karamozov or War and Peace sentence by sentence and follow all of the cross references (partly because there aren’t any cross references). You read them for the story– the drama, the characters, the time and the place. It takes you somewhere. You engage your imagination.
Similarly, I think if I read the scriptures for it’s verses, sections, and chapters, I’m missing something. I’m not engaging my imagination. I’m not considering the people, the relationships, the conflicts and the story. I’m missing the deeper message. Maybe I’m missing the point.
This reminds me that maybe the Kingdom of God is more like a cosmic story than an ethical framework or set of intellectual propositions. And maybe reading the scriptures as a story helps you to find a greater understanding of the story that is yet but not yet. A story where God is involved and still has characters, places, and conflict– the stuff that makes up our daily lives.
I keep trying to come up with an analogy for how we engage with the story through the scriptures. Reading the scriptures as verses, chapters and cross references may be like trying to convert it from an analog to a digital signal with low resolution or only a few bits. Reading it as a story is like taking in the music and feeling it. Like finding the rhythm and dancing to it.
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Damon, I appreciate your comments about how we typically approach the Bible. It reminds me of Kenneth Bailey’s description of parables: “A parable is not a delivery system for an idea. It is not like a shell casing that can be discarded once the idea (the shell) is fired. Rather a parable is a house in which the reader or listener is invited to take up residence. The reader is encouraged to look out on the world from the point of view of the story…” (The Cross and the Prodigal, p. 87). Thinking of Scripture, not just the parables, as a house with many windows and doors through which I can observe the world has become one of my favorite postures towards God’s word. When I can read the Bible as a narrative of the great story of God’s work throughout history and beyond, I see my place there and stand in awe and humility. Praise be to God!
You might like the book God, A Biography by Jack Miles. My husband read it. It is a treatment of the bible as a narrative with God as the main character.
Robin (the Quaker who came to the Re-Imagine workshop last month)