Category: Eat This Book

I Found Love {The Challenge of “Eat This Book”}

I’ve never read the Bible from end to end. I grew up in the church but biblical literacy was not encouraged, until Blackhawk. Reading the ancient books I wondered—does God love me? Who am I to question God? And yet, I regularly bring questions and doubt to my reading of scripture.

I cringe reading the Old Testament, at times embarrassed that it is a part of my religion because the God of the ancient stories seemed appalling to me. As I open up the text, doubts loudly dominate as I wonder: Is God full of wrath, as ruthless and destructive of cultures as these stories seem to convey? More vital personally, does God look down on and limit women, or simply ignore women’s existence like so many of the Old Testament stories do, or worse, does God consider me less worthy because I am female? This is a topic I’ve dedicated a lot of time and thought to, with questions I bring to the text because of their application today.

As a result, for months I quit reading the selected texts for Eat This Book. Dejected, I felt heavy-hearted, even bogged down with discouragement, that this ancient, patriarchal, violent religion was connected to my faith and church, thoughts I have dodged for most of my adult spiritual life.

A wise friend suggested I read it differently, and listen for themeta-story of Yahwehwhich is told and retold over many generations. Still questioning and wondering, still doubtful, I tried to understand what the God of the Old Testament has to do with me, or you, the 21st-century followers of Jesus. In time, through God’s gracious gift of connections, I saw that we, followers of Christ are part of this innumerable family! The Story matters because of the character of God whose faithfulness and love is clear throughout the generations. We are a part of a community of faith — the whole line traced through the Old Testament. Believers are connected, continuing forward. This is our inheritance. This story, the promises and covenant and love of God is for us all, the Story a continuum, toward Jesus. And now I see grace, even back in the ancient stories with the care for the poor, the alien, the widowed, the barren, even the environment.

All my life I’ve been yearning to be a part of something, and finally I understand fully that I am! I know; I see in the Story that God’s faithfulness is infinite, and as it touches each of us, God’s love transforms us through atonement of our sins, actively reconciles people to God and one another.  That’s the promise for you and me.

I read the ancient stories with different eyes now, knowing that we are each a treasured part of the Story. I have intimacy with God in a new way, for the first time.

Strangely this came from knowing the Story. This is utterly awe-inspiring. Yes, God is formidable, to be revered and feared. But “fear of the Lord” is a reverence that strengthens and fills us through our dependence on God. I am significant to this God, who is and was and will be, for all time and outside of time.

Frequently in the ancient texts I noticed people fell on their knees before God when in His presence. I believe this is to be our posture too, awe. Revel in His presence, His affection. I have been both wrecked and healed.

The religion that caused me pain as I began to read the text over time has healed me, bringing reconciliation and restoration to my life.   I am part of that story. It is also my Story, which is breathtaking and devastating, from beginning to end.  Soaking in the big story of the Bible faithfully, as I was truly listening, truly pursuing understanding and wisdom, the Holy Spirit revealed a gift, God’s love.  It was there all along, but I was so caught up in and caught off guard by cultural differences and my assumptions, out of ignorance and naiveté. How difficult it is for us to hear the Truth. And this limits God’s work in me. Now, humbled and convicted, I open the word of God differently—on my knees. Sure of his acceptance and love, in faith that there is something in it for us all no matter our background, our brokenness, our gifts or abilities, or our gender.  There it is, hope for us all.

MHH

This article was originally published in Illuminate, a magazine of Blackhawk Church.

Something else on Eat This Book: Imagine my surprise, I read the Bible Wrong

Why So Silent? (And My New Superpower)

I have a super power — Invisibility.

I’m having a difficult time sorting things – knowing that I want to be writing, but accepting life, which includes very little time for creativity. My camera has fallen silent and well as this blog.

I have done a little writing, including a piece for my church on the Eat This Book challenge this year, which I will share a link to soon. It’s a beautiful little magazine, entitled Illuminate and I’ve written and offered my photography for it often.

These days our lives are all topsy-turvy; more than you could know.  I cannot write everything.  I can barely process it myself, before the next day begins and we do it all over again, sometimes worse, sometimes with a little reprieve. It seems it has been this way for months and I do not know when things will end. Some days I feel as if I might break in a thousand pieces of sorrow.

And then a dear friend gets cancer and I’m thrown into a whole new perspective — at least we have our health, at least we have one another.

There are some stories that are not mine to tell. Somehow telling my story (or the impact of my dead father on me, which I have done a lot of) is okay. But writing about my kids is complicated and I wonder whether I even have the right?  I want to protect them – to make life safe and to not talk about them.  But their needs are necessitating that I write less, work a part-time job, schedule and attend a million appointments for their academic and emotional and physical travails.

I feel invisible sometimes. I live now for my children and I don’t know if that’s right?  It doesn’t feel entirely right, but I know no other way to do all this, for now.  I just don’t want to become invisible. (This setting aside of my dreams feels decidedly unfeminist, to say the least.)

All the while, my mother is aging and I am helping her, more and more.  A widow, she lives independently and happily on her own but she doesn’t want to go to doctor by herself.  It falls to me, the daughter who is close by and doesn’t have a “career.”  I don’t mind.  My relationship with my mother has never been all that strong so I am grateful that I know her better than I ever have.  Her stories, her endless remembering which once annoyed me, are treasures to be stored away.  It’s a gift to be here for her.

In the meantime, I’m having a hard time being disciplined.  I haven’t gone for a run in two weeks, or is it three and it’s not just because the cold of early winter has set in. It’s because I’m exhausted and confused.  I’m crying a lot which is so ironic because for years I longed for the ability to cry.  It was shut off by emotional pain, medication, and God knows what else.  Now I just hope I don’t embarrass myself with the level of emotions that are bombarding me, flowing free for the first time in my life.

I’m sleeping very little which makes me certifiably crazy!

And in the midst of this I hunger for and lean into God; depending on and knowing the unknowable God better than at any time in my life.  I pray for deep belief, evidenced through my actions, through my life.  Belief in the Holy One’s faithfulness, love and peace.

But I’m so tired. And honestly I’m just surviving.

I’ve alluded to some of the challenges in recent weeks, but I cannot say specifically what we are dealing with. Not just to protect others, but I don’t want this to be a place of emotional vomiting.  I want it to offer the hope that I depend on, and to express my dependence on the Holy One.

One day I will find the moments, enough hours in the day (or night) to tell my stories and put them in a manuscript, one day. One day I will become a solid form for others to know and read.  But not today.

These days are about invisibility — mostly silent, these days are serving and giving.  And in many ways about receiving (learning to do so) from the amazing community of people we have in our lives.

In the meantime, thank you for being faithful readers and friends, for your occasional comments and for staying with me through a busy and mostly silent summer and fall. As I learn I become more visible, prodded by the Spirit and growing.  And I hope to have the energy to share it all with you.

{an apology to God}

this is an apology

to God, I suppose.

if I’ve learned anything over the last few months

reading the Bible end to end, it is that

God is faithful.

He never promised us that life would be

pain free,

or without problems. Only

to be there

with us, behind us, ahead of us, around us;

I’m clinging to him.

{A Miscarriage of a Life – a post Mother’s Day Lament}

Yesterday I told myself over and over — I have had a miscarriage of a life.

The day before, I spent all day celebrating my older sister as she received a doctorate of ministry in preaching from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  Yes, I was happy for her but I could not enjoy the day fully because I was so disappointed with my own life.

After the very long ceremony (those Lutherans know how to “party”) I asked her what was next on her list for world domination? It was a backhanded compliment, which had a risk of offending her, but luckily she was gracious. (I get snarky and sarcastic when I’m feeling bad about myself.)

These sisters of mine are capable of doing anything.

Harrison’s seem to have the brains and talent, ability to work extremely hard, a yearning for justice to prevail and the certainty that injustice is, in part, our life’s call, challenge and responsibility.  We are strong, capable, and powerful women. Some days I actually believe that about myself.

I have come to believe that much of the spiritual journey is one of being stripped of all that we would put our trust in, other than God.

Life is found in losing it for Christ’s sake.  The life that God has for each of us, if received–changes us.  There is not one sacred path for all.

My journey over the last twenty years has been a stripping, for I never knew Jesus, before.

I never knew I was beloved. I didn’t believe there was a purpose for my life outside of what I could accomplish, a life purpose that is all about Jesus.

Until my father died nine years ago, I was in many ways “asleep.”  Because of the severe damage to my psyche from his anger, I did not know myself.  I did not know the Trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in any real way.

I did not know it, but I was bankrupt in spirit.

But even in that absence of belief, God planted questions, passions and strong desires inside me, a prompting that has never left me to know the Word of God and interpret it. I know that I am to receive that– and submit to the unique journey God has laid out, even when I cannot see clearly the road ahead.

Trusting is painful — the stripping away of sin, of selfishness and in many ways of aspects of my humanity, my character, that I thought were who I was.  But there is grace, protection, comfort, provision and shalom in submitting to the Holy One’s purposes.

It is the only safe place. And yet it hurts so much when I feel I do not understand clearly.

In my 20s and 30s I lived for my job, it was my identity and all that I knew.  Strangely, I believed it was all I was good at and I thought that I was choosing to walk away from that work, because the environment was unhealthy, but I see now that God led me away, took everything that made me feel good and strong and powerful.  I thought I knew.

I could have lost my marriage and family because of my addiction to alcohol.  I thought I knew, thought I was strong enough to beat it with will power, but the addiction beat me and I found that I was nothing without the Holy One.  Even if I gave up the drink, without the Holy One filling me, healing, and strengthening me I was nothing. I thought I knew.

I sat Sunday scrutinizing people who had given many years of their lives to learning, thinking, writing, believing, enough to sacrifice time with their own children and partners, to achieve this incredible goal of a masters or doctorate. Some were restrained, some were giddy, and many were just slightly stunned to survive it, it seemed to me as a bystander.

I was so incredibly jealous and sad for myself, even mad at myself.  Though the day wasn’t about me, inside my head everything was about me and my feelings of not exactly failure, but a strange bedfellow to it, a miscarriage of a life.   In that moment, how dearly I regretted leaving my career in my early thirties and staying at home with my kids. Deep down a part of me still believed that I would not have succumbed to alcoholism or depression in the end if I had continue to work fulltime.  I’d still have a great career, I’d be able to leverage it toward other work, and I would be respected by others.   Pretty much bullshit and lies, but I almost believed it again as I sat there fuming internally.

I said all that and more to my mother as we drove back home.  I don’t know if I really believed it.  I do know that who I am, the real me, the person I never knew until I had no job, suffered from major depression and became a drunk – that woman needs Jesus! She believes in the Creator in a way that she never did before she lost it all.

I remembered that my boss, while I was trying to decide about leaving InterVarsity told me to go have babies and come back in five years to continue my part of world domination.  Only, I never went back I was too busy having a breakdown and drinking myself stupid.  That’s what I mean by a miscarriage of a life.

I was debriefing the day with Tom, who is extremely smart and has an almost PhD from the University of Chicago.  As his head hit the pillow he exhaled, he said something like:

Higher degrees have their purpose, and there is a sense of personal achievement if it is important to you, but being a parent is three times harder than getting that PhD.

“Yeah,” I said, “but the world doesn’t esteem parents.  Parenting won’t get you a job.  Parenting won’t bring you any real regard or admiration from others.  Parenting is something everyone does.  (Not to mention you don’t get paid and the hours are terrible.)  It’s not enough.” 

My eyes filled with tears so many times on Sunday, I felt like I was choking most of the day.  I was happy for my sister, genuinely — for I know only in part the many sacrifices she and her loved ones have made for her to accomplish this incredible goal.  I know my father was doing a happy dance, wherever he is.  My mother was beaming.

I spent my mother’s day celebrating my sister in part because I believe in doing things even when they are hard.  I want my children to grow up knowing that doing the right thing isn’t always what’s easy, nor is it usually about you. That there will be many opportunities in life to choose yourself over others, but when given the chance to celebrate someone you love, you should take it.

All day I had moments of deep self-pity and self-loathing for my choices and beating myself up about the last fifteen years.  Hindsight is 20/20 and all, still this is what I have come to know.

I know I would be different and horrible person if I had continued on the path of a workaholic and constant striving for external approval. My character has been changed through these experiences.

Through the mistakes I have made I have found a true understanding of God’s mercy and grace in my life. I know that I am loved by Jesus – I didn’t know or believe it two decades ago.

Through the mistakes I have made I have found a daily dependence on God for my health – my mood, my purpose and meaning.

For even as humbling and hard as each day is and how much it feels like a sacrifice to not have a viable lauded career at this time, I’m on my knees ever more.

Most of what I am learning is yet to be understood or written I suppose.  Clearly, I am still broken, still too easily overcome by the wrong motives. I continue to be frustrated and discontented and I am frustrated with myself because of this.

In studying the book of Proverbs (because that is where we are in Eat This Book reading the entire Bible in a year at church) I am being drawn to Proverbs 31.  I look forward to learning what a 21st century feminist wife and mother, a homemaker, budding writer has to learn about being a Proverbs 31 woman.

I am open, and fearful. I am angry and aching inside, deep where no one understands me except God.

I know I should be grateful but everything about me is wired to work hard, to please other people, to get the acclaim of others, to be esteemed and admired; it is the entire human condition without God.

I pray for spiritual understanding and an ability to lay all that down — to trust and obey.

Deep down I know that as long as I keep longing for all the wrong things, I can’t grasp what is good, whether that is understanding of what I already have or whether it is receiving what God has for me next.  I cannot grasp it because I am still so filled with discontent.

I thought I knew.  There is very little that I do know.  But my story isn’t fully written.


Upward Mobility (a poem)

Earth ‘s crammed with heaven… 

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.  – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

More than once, in fact
dozens of times in the Big Story of the Torah,
responding to God meant
falling face down on the ground.
Blinding light,
being pregnant with plain old
awe.
Take off your shoes kind of wonderment.
Because you’re on holy ground.

I am so unseeing.
Everything in me,
in my dusty, meager day to day corporeal living
roars something else.
At me. In me.  From me.  To me.
Lift yourself
up. Rise higher, get
above the next fellow.
Upward mobility. Show
your stuff. Your smarts. Your
talent and creativity.
The world is shouting in my ear.

Then I close the door, and
find within, in
my paltry worship, my measly human love.
All I have is a quickening heartbeat, throwing off
the chasing anxiety.
All I want is a falling face down on the ground, kind of awe.
When was the last time I felt
astonishment in God?
A breathed in, have to close my eyes
star struck, stomach lurching,
take off my shoes, because I’m on holy ground

kind of amazement of my God?

All I want.

When was the last time?

 

My Spiritual Eyes are Stinging

From listening to a QIdeas talk with Eugene Peterson on the Sabbath.

I must stop trying to be God.  

Which means also stop trying to prove myself.  Stop with the interminable, frantic burden of finding my place in the world.  Yes, there is a dignity to work – any kind of work—even house work.  But when we inflate our worth by acting like what we do is everything  — it’s something, then we put ourselves above God.

When our “moral sweat” brings our sense of value, it blinds us to God at work and our spiritual eyes are left stinging.

“We want to be like God.” said Eugene Peterson.

Sabbath living is … to show up.  Then, shut up.

Knowing  that God is doing something, we are to live in response it.  Otherwise, it’s only an oppressive ritual.  Religious devotion deprived of meaning.  Eugene Peterson even asserts that programs sometimes can keep us from finding community in churches.

I’ve reflected for a long time on what it means to be Christian community to one another.  Unabashedly knowing that I’ve lived most of my life feeling as if there’s a giant, lonely even gaping hole inside me that I cannot seem to fill up.  Family didn’t do it.  Work didn’t do it.  Creating doesn’t do it.  Motherhood didn’t do it.  Being married didn’t do it.  Drinking really didn’t do it.  Being a part of things doesn’t do it.  Serving doesn’t do it.  There will never be enough friends — the right sort of friends.  Work.  Hobbies.

Nothing fills it that gaping, God sized hole.

Shutting up and showing up is how God fills that gaping hole inside us.  It is the most repeated commandment in the Bible.  And ironically Jesus was accused, of all the radical things he did which were many, of not keeping Sabbath well.

“God is working when we are sleeping.” said Eugene Peterson. “We live in a toxic culture that doesn’t understand the need for Sabbath – our world is full of compulsively and insecurity.”

Rarely do we sit, play, see, breathe  in slowly, and just be. 

Creating active space for nothing,

knowing that when you pray you are not accomplishing.

Learning an awareness that God is doing something and you don’t have a clue what it is—

it is a constant surrendering.

I keep being struck reading the Torah (the first five books of the OT) by when Moses and Aaron are confronted by the failings of the people of Israel – the abject poverty of soul, their errors, constant rebellion and the sinful nature of the people, they fall face down.  Moses and Aaron, that is — over and over again.  (I wonder how many times it is repeated?)

They fell, face down.

How do we fall face down—letting go—surrendering ourselves?  Literally.  Figuratively.  Moses and Aaron did it over and over again.

I’m starting to think,  just possibly,  that I’m meant to live with that hole in my heart.  Perhaps even, I am supposed to acknowledge it and

let God do the filling up.

Just maybe, he made me that way for a reason, so that I would never okay without him— never totally content — never fully joyful— never imagine that I’m in control—living always humbled by my need for the Holy encounters with him.

It’s living in constant surrender.  Face down, a kairos surrender to the Holy One.

“Take my tired body, my confused mind, and my restless soul into your arms, and give me rest, simple quiet rest.” — Henri Nouwen

MHH

Can I “forget” that I’m a Woman while at Church? Forgetting and Forgiving

NOT MY IMAGE

NOT MY IMAGE

For a long time, I’ve been angry; allowing myself to root about, sullied by my feelings–ashamed. And oh, so hurt.  Hurt by my church not taking a brave, outward stand on women in leadership.

Then, over the last few months God has taken me on a journey, though it began many years ago.  The Holy One has helped me to “forget” that I’m a woman at church.  Turning off my “feminist radar” so that I can fully receive from scriptures and teaching.  And not be caught up all the time in the women’s issue.  This has been good.  I am being healed in many respects. For me personally, I have to let it go.  Forget about it. Forgive.

I read with a feminist lens and this especially true when reading the Bible.  Because of my precarious journey of self-understanding, as I have grown in my knowledge of being a feminist Christian woman, I needed to know and learn the stories of the women in the Bible.  When reading the OT with Eat This Book, I found myself overly conscious – hyper aware of every time a woman is mentioned or our story ignored.  As you can imagine, this was causing me no end of frustration and anger (being a bad tourist in a culture foreign to me, I suppose) when the Old Testament is so definitely a patriarchal, androcentric collection.

I ask how women pull out the truth for ourselves, when we are reading the OT, when many verses in scripture have an interpretation and very likely the translators came to it with bias and agendas.   I had to let go of that. Let it go free for now.

I am learning to read the  Bible  for the big story, the meta-narrative at least for now. Fly high over these books, look for major themes.  Not sweat the details, for now.

Our church is strongly recommending the ESV study Bible.  I have resisted purchasing the ESV.  I learned  recently that there were no women on the team of contributors, the oversight committee and the review scholars.  This strikes me as a significant backward choice.   I must admit to feeling dismayed. Both the English Standard Version (ESV) and the New Living Translation (NLT) which I love reading, down-play the ministries and roles of New Testament women in their translations and show a bias about women and leadership.  This doesn’t discount all the rich, important amazing scholarship.  But it sullied it, for me, that no women biblical scholars were included.

I bring the NRSV to church when I want to know quickly, which verses apply to me as a human being. (Of course I know they all do, but it’s still irksome to have to think about it, when a verse says Man and Men and it means human or people.  It so limits the joy of opening scripture to have to think about it and I find that extra step of thinking takes away from my ability to hear the sermon for all its full meaning.  I do wish that teachers if they are aware of when a version is particularly biased in the translation of particular verses, could/would point it out.  But that’s a pipe dream for now, perhaps, at least for this church.  Forget about it. Forgive.

I was gently reminded by a new friend on Facebook that our dialogue about women can become ghettoized (which I’ll confess I don’t totally understand what she means) but I do understand that we need to be laden with grace in all we say. And in particular where there is pain involved,  it seems all the more significant, even profoundly so to to find within ourselves the strength to be gracious and even pray for those that we disagree with.

As I grow, I am often convicted by the truth that my tone and heart are so often not like that. And I am reminded to “Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone.”

It is a unique dance too, when you (may) feel called to be a bridge person, (may) be called to challenge injustice of all kinds.  This doesn’t mean that we can do it with a tone of bitterness and condemnation, rather we should be at peace and speak with genuine grace and love.

Let it fly free.  Yes, oddly and quite gratefully, I am learning to “forget” that I’m a woman while at Church. For now.  

MH

I highly recommend the blog of Margaret Mowczko, a NT scholar.  Her writings have greatly influenced me, even for this blog post.  Her blog New Life has a rich set of articles, but I particularly point to her articles on Gender Equality Issues.  This is the one on Bible Translations, that I referenced above.

I have not read it, but a friend recently recommended Mark Strauss’ book, “Distorting Scripture? The Challenge of Bible Translation and Gender Accuracy” (InterVarsity, 1998).  His book argues for gender neutral translations.

I know that this idea of “forgetting” I’m a woman will really bother strict feminists.  Sorry about that.  It’s just something that is working for me, for right now.  I will never truly forget.  It’s more like a word picture of an idea that I’m embracing for right now.

On Motherhood: Searching for Meaningful Metanarrative

I keep crying out that I want a bigger purpose for my life.  

The universe cries back, your purpose is right in front of you.

I cry back– it’s not enough.  It’s not enough.  This is not enough!

I cannot pretend. I’ve been up and down, sometimes miserable lately. And I’m ashamed of myself. Why is it that I just cannot figure out how to be happy? I had an interaction with E yesterday that spun me into these gloomy thoughts.   We were talking about cheerful people – you know the kind.  The people whose voices go up when they talk to you and they always smile and they are mostly cheerful and helpful!!  They seem to have an inner glow.

It’s just not me, I am mellow, solidly so, but she really likes those sorts of people! (Even though, or perhaps because, she isn’t one.)

I don’t like them, necessarily.  I doubt people’s sincerity, strangers, when they behave like that. I find them hard to trust.  People that I know in my real life, who are like that, I take with a grain of salt. But it is hard for me to accept that they are always UP even as I try to believe people like that are sincere, not putting me on.  But I have to admit they can grate on me.

But I realized yesterday that I long to be that sort of Mother. Oh, I encourage, I hug, I kiss, I affirm like crazy – but I don’t slather on love or exude joy.  I’m not all over my kids, thrilled that they simply exist and I’m just lucky to be their mom!  (Though I am, very fortunate to have them.)  And I don’t serve pink Valentine’s Day meals or even give valentines to my kids.

But my daughter wouldn’t let me even try yesterday – pushing me away when I smothered her with kisses and smiles.  “It’s just not real, Mom.”  Saying that I was making fun of her, which I definitely wasn’t.   That got me really in the dumps yesterday.

I woke today with gloomy, anxious thoughts.  My body physically hurts from my heart racing so much.  I even thought I was getting sick, so I laid down yesterday.  Just as I dropped off to sleep – probably ten times – a jolt of adrenaline woke me.  I know this, it is anxiety.  (And I start to wonder if I should return to my shrink.  Damn it, I haven’t seen him in a good long while and somehow returning solidifies my failure.  Failure to stay calm and maintain my mood. )

Even as God did a beautiful thing just last week or was it the week before?  And he brought me out of the depression that clung to me from November to January.  It seems that I cannot maintain any peace in my heart. 

Reading through the Bible with my church.  We’re in the book of Numbers.  And I am struck by the Israelites inability to trust God.  Even as they had miracles – Clouds leading them, and manna provided for them and plagues cursing them … and I think to myself, if God spoke to me like that, I’d have more faith that he’s got a plan for my life.  (Um, maybe.)

Perhaps it really is simply that I don’t trust God with my days – with my future.

I think, I just need to be struck with some horrible punishment like Miriam when she challenged things (Nu 12) and then I’d believe.  Then I’d stop complaining. Or would I?

And every time the people do something stupid, Moses and Aaron’s response was to fall face down on the ground.  Hm…..

Is that what I’m doing?  Am I just complaining when I say I just want to be happy.  I find the days I am living — the sweeping up endless dirt, cooking and washing up, washing and folding, the damn whiny dog, the endless homework, and children who really don’t want to achieve, trying to be helpful and failing,

endless, same, same, same…

Being at home is about giving up my rights, serving. But perhaps I am not principled enough to get meaning out of any of it.  Not much anyway.  

Phooey, I can’t stand myself right now.

A friend keeps telling me to read the Bible for the metanarrative.  I think to myself.  I cannot even live life in the big narrative. 

I’m sweeping up dust bunnies and resenting every minute. 

I’ll regret this grumpy post.  I always do. Definitely not living in the light!   But I need to be truthful, even if it’s not cheerful!  Some days that is all I’m holding on to — being a person that is straight and honest.   Some days.

Imagine my Surprise. I read the Bible “Wrong.”

I never knew  that there was a right or wrong way of reading the Bible.  

I have always thought, naively I will now acknowledge, that all that mattered was how one responded to what they read in the Bible.  Nope, I’ve been all wrong.  I don’t know where I learned this idea either.  I’ve absorbed a way of looking at the Scriptures that I never questioned.

“It’s how I was raised.”  

What do I mean? Fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals (and I was taught to believe this but no longer) have a view of the Bible that it’s perfect, as in ” inerrant and infallible” by which they mean, it’s a divine product and its authority comes in “that God literally wrote it” by whispering his intents to people who then wrote it down (like God’s holy scribes).  And unless it clearly was metaphor, most every word was literally the truth, word for word from God.  These people also believe that the Bible is basically all God wants us to know in communicating his will to us, which precludes the work of the Holy Spirit and prayer, among other things.  They believe the Bible has everything we need and is totally relevant to the Christian life today.  That it is simple and plain, obvious; meaning if you just read it you’ll “just get it.”  There’s a morsel of goodness in that idea that anyone can read the Bible.  Unfortunately, even though anyone can read it isn’t simple!  What about the fact that it was written in languages we do not read or speak (most of us) and in a culture and time that we know nothing about. And the last, most heinous thing that simplistic reading of the Bible brings is the idea that one can pick and pull verses out of the context, not believing context is that important.  They read the Bible seeking blessings and affirmations for life.

Guilty. Guilty.  Guilty.

I do believe, and it is important to affirm, as Temper Longman says in How to Read Genesis, that the Bible is:

“… grounded in the ultimate divine authorship of the whole.  Thus in spite of a variety of styles, genres, themes and motifs, it is important to ask how the parts fit into the whole.”

And that is what I have known.  I guess one can make the Bible say pretty much whatever you want it to if you work at it.  People do it all the time!  I’m forty-five years old, been reading the Bible for myself since high school, and in many ways this is how I have always understood things.

That is what makes thinking about it in a new way so frightening.

I have to admit that I’m learning.

That fact should not be embarrassing, but it is.  People don’t like to admit very often that they don’t know something.  We all like  to come off as experts, if not experts than knowledgeable, if not knowledgeable then at least well-informed.  (

(Sigh)).  It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, uninformed, even lacking knowledge.  It is hard to admit but I believe if I’m willing to do that then perhaps others will become open to considering the same.

Do I dare even talk about this topic of reading the Bible?  I am by no means an expert but I’ve read some things recently. I am armed and dangerous but I’ll list my sources so that you can do your own homework.  (And you always should.)

Here’s what I’ve learned.

The Bible is a piece of literature.

It is a book made up of books.  It is a big story of God and the world.  It is made up of stories and poems that tell us about God.  It is also a series of smaller stories.   It is, like any other book you read, written within a genre and knowing the type of genre you are reading helps you know how you are supposed to read it; whether it is poetry, myths, parables, history, legends or a combination.  And like other literature you study you should know a little of the customs and culture of the time it was written.

“The truth of the matter is that the proper interpretation of any piece of literature, and in particular a text as ancient and important as the Bible, deserves our careful reflection.” — T. Longman.

Hermeneutics is just a technical name for interpretation or “how you read.”

There is a way to read the Bible for what it is not just for what we’d like it to say.  And as we learn to interpret the Bible — as literature, within a genre, written in a time and place, a culture, with a certain purpose, we are less likely to be “Biblical Literalists.”  Just because you find verses that supports your view doesn’t mean you’ve probed fully the biblical view.

How we read the Bible has become very divisive among Christians and has been a contributing factor in the “culture wars.”  Biblical literalists fear the “culture slide or culture creep” and tightly hold a grip on the Church and on their ideas; that a few texts yanked out of any context or culture, are prescriptive of how to “do church” for all time. This keeps churches from changing, in ways that may seem obvious to those of us (women and men) being raised with a different way of looking at Scriptures – raised to think, study and apply scripture for ourselves.

I do believe that the Bible guides us and has everything to say to us in the twenty-first century, it can and should guide us, it changes our ideas about our moral and intellectual life, it forms how we think and behave, how we treat others, and transforms us and shapes who we are becoming …

But …

It’s all about how you read and interpret the Bible. 

I think there may be many people in the Church today who were raised to be biblical literalists. I was.  I no longer believe this is correct in fact I know now that it is wrong.  But I don’t exactly know what I do think, yet.  That’s why I’m “developing my biblical hermeneutic.”

I’m learning that there are some that believe there are lots of parts of the bible that you cannot take literally, either as historical fact or direct will of God.

I agree with Tom Wright when he says that the authority of God is embodied in Jesus himself, not in the literal words of the Bible.  (Loosely quoted.)

Of course how you read and interpret is subject to the wisdom and biases of humans.

Everyone comes at the Bible with a “world view.” We are all guilty of cherry picking verses to be factual and literal truth or determining that something is cultural.   Everyone does it.

Take 1 Timothy for instance.

“Women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with hair braided, or with gold, pearl, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God.  Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became the transgressor.  Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”

If you read it literally, women are not permitted to teach or have authority over men but also they are not to braid their hair or wear pearls or gold or expensive clothes.   Also women are responsible for the origin of sin in the world.  The “good news” is that we can be saved by bearing children.  If you interpret it literally these are God’s instructions/restrictions for behavior and roles of women.  Some churches choose to prohibit women’s leadership in churches because they use this verse to “prove” that God doesn’t approve.  But they happily ignore the rest of the verses as cultural.

That’s cherry-picking. 

But if you look as the Bible as being written by a person in a particular time and culture, if you know the historical cultural setting they were writing in then you see that this is how one man in the early Christian church saw things.

When you read it with context, looking at the contrast between this and other texts in the New Testament, if we recognize or listen to more than one voice speaking about the role of women we can seek to discern which voice to honor.  In the New Testament there are examples of women apostles and teachers, women financing the ministry, women sitting at Jesus’ feet learning from him with the other disciples, a woman being the first to speak to Jesus after his Resurrection.  These stories all empower of women in the early church.  You can see this if you don’t restrict your reading to Timothy’s set of verses, which are very restrictive.

Listen to more than one voice. 

Look for themes and overarching ideas.  I believe one must recognize more than just one voice in trying to figure out anything in the Bible.  And it takes discernment and wisdom and doing your homework in trying to figure out which voices to honor.  I look at how Jesus treated women when it comes to this topic.  I do not look at the verses about early church as prescriptive of how we should run our churches today.  But that’s just me.   But as you can see, a lot is at stake in how we read and understand the Bible.

Everyone wants to read the bible for today – for guidance and wisdom for today’s problems, for today’s trials, for this moment.  The problem inherent in that is that without doing the hard work of asking the questions of the context and placement in history, we endanger our ability to hear God.   I am greatly encouraged with the knowledge that there are essential ideas from God that are clear and reinforced many places in scripture.  Those broad strokes from God are the things that guide us — point us to God and deepen our relationship with the trinity.

Those are my thoughts offered humbly because like I said, I am no expert and I am likely much too opinionated.

On the topic of unlearning and learning How to Read the Bible Again:

  1. The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible by Scot McKnight.  He’s a professor at North Park Seminary.  He also has a blog Jesus Creed which is for me critical reading.
  2. Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by NT Wright.

And to add to my list of commentary suggestions (from why I’m Afraid to Read the Bible):

  1. New Testament Commentary for Everyone, by Tom Wright.  They could be in the “For dummies”series.  But not really, for everyone is a nicer way to put it.  These are really good.  They go through books of the bible and explain the background and what it’s saying.  I really like them.  Straightforward, not dumbing it down too much, just enough to make easy.  Not everyone has time to do a lot of study.  These are really informative and interesting.  And short.

Melody