An interesting thing happening in my week is that I’ve been all teary every time I read (or even read about) the Bible. Happened again as I read your thoughtful words here. Thanks for this.
You’ve put succinctly something I’ve been realizing more clearly in the past few years:
“As I’ve treaded through the past few years of upheaval both public and private, I have been helped by the reality that things in the Bible are not reductive; Scripture allows for and welcomes the full scope of human experience and emotion.”
Something about this makes the mystery of God and his Word even more marvelous, rather than disconcerting.
Yes, exactly, Loren! The presence of confusion, discomfort, and tension is comforting -- though when I phrase it that way, it seems like it ought to be the opposite.
This is making me want to re-read Matthew Mullins' book - a great word to highlight all the beautiful literary elements of the Bible that can be unnoticed or under appreciated. And it's probably why I have and always will ENJOY the shocking, comforting and captivating qualities of the book of Job. (pssst: please write something about Ezekiel soon - that was a hard one for me).
I recently read Philip Yancey's memoir (Where the Light Fell) and then began Collin Hanson's biography of Tim Keller this week. What struck me in both was how these men were raised in church traditions that I would find familiar, but only encountered Jesus when they began spending time in the Bible for themselves—and it was the encounter with Jesus that changed their lives, not the church traditions, not the learning three easy ways to live your faith, etc. It was meeting the complex, well-rounded, not-black-and-white PERSON that we meet in the Gospels. I've been overwhelmed lately by the deep importance of knowing JESUS above any other theological argument, and knowing him throughout the whole story—from Genesis through Revelation.
An interesting thing happening in my week is that I’ve been all teary every time I read (or even read about) the Bible. Happened again as I read your thoughtful words here. Thanks for this.
Aww thanks, Laura.
You’ve put succinctly something I’ve been realizing more clearly in the past few years:
“As I’ve treaded through the past few years of upheaval both public and private, I have been helped by the reality that things in the Bible are not reductive; Scripture allows for and welcomes the full scope of human experience and emotion.”
Something about this makes the mystery of God and his Word even more marvelous, rather than disconcerting.
Yes, exactly, Loren! The presence of confusion, discomfort, and tension is comforting -- though when I phrase it that way, it seems like it ought to be the opposite.
This is making me want to re-read Matthew Mullins' book - a great word to highlight all the beautiful literary elements of the Bible that can be unnoticed or under appreciated. And it's probably why I have and always will ENJOY the shocking, comforting and captivating qualities of the book of Job. (pssst: please write something about Ezekiel soon - that was a hard one for me).
Oh, my. Ezekiel is probably above my pay grade hahaha
I recently read Philip Yancey's memoir (Where the Light Fell) and then began Collin Hanson's biography of Tim Keller this week. What struck me in both was how these men were raised in church traditions that I would find familiar, but only encountered Jesus when they began spending time in the Bible for themselves—and it was the encounter with Jesus that changed their lives, not the church traditions, not the learning three easy ways to live your faith, etc. It was meeting the complex, well-rounded, not-black-and-white PERSON that we meet in the Gospels. I've been overwhelmed lately by the deep importance of knowing JESUS above any other theological argument, and knowing him throughout the whole story—from Genesis through Revelation.
Oh, I like this observation about those men (and yourself) -- thanks for sharing!
If you’ve not yet read Lore Wilbert’s A Curious Faith, it gets into this a bit and I liked it a lot.