Quote:
“It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive. Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name....That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.” ― Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
Texts:
Psalm 88
Leviticus 15:19-31
2 Corinthians 9:1-5
Blech. Offerings and menstruation. There are times I think: "Really, does this need to be in the Bible?" I distract myself with the rules and the regulations and view the Bible only at its most superficial level. I sometimes become frustrated with the texts in our Bible, but usually this is a result of looking at it in a very one-dimensional way. Has this book not proven to be more sophisticated than this?
Re: Leviticus
Is the concern in Leviticus really about what is happening with the woman? Is it about a community that is both set apart and set within? Are we not both set apart and set within, in order that we might truly live in the world as children of God?
Re: Paul's 2nd Letter to the Corinthians
Sometimes, I think Paul's writing is simply about an offering... but is it about an offering, or is it about Paul loving the people at Achaia to the extent that he would boast of them in all of his travels, clinging to his memories of them as the nights became long and the way became rough?
I can't help but believe that God is far less concerned about menstruation and offerings and far more concerned about our lives of faith.
I wonder if, sometimes, when the texts seem one-dimensional and boring, God is really beckoning us to dig deeper, to look to the margins of the page, to see what jumps out at us. This isn't a way to make the Bible say something other than what it says, but I think it's a way to go deeper into what it says, to invite us in to ask questions, to enter the debate, to wrestle with how our world looks and works with how the world ought to look and ought to work.
Maybe it's just about the superficial stuff... but, the more time I spend in the Bible and the more time I spend in the life of faith and the life of the church, I find it to be less and less about the superficial stuff and more and more about to what lies beyond the surface.
“It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive. Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name....That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.” ― Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
Texts:
Psalm 88
Leviticus 15:19-31
2 Corinthians 9:1-5
Blech. Offerings and menstruation. There are times I think: "Really, does this need to be in the Bible?" I distract myself with the rules and the regulations and view the Bible only at its most superficial level. I sometimes become frustrated with the texts in our Bible, but usually this is a result of looking at it in a very one-dimensional way. Has this book not proven to be more sophisticated than this?
Re: Leviticus
Is the concern in Leviticus really about what is happening with the woman? Is it about a community that is both set apart and set within? Are we not both set apart and set within, in order that we might truly live in the world as children of God?
Re: Paul's 2nd Letter to the Corinthians
Sometimes, I think Paul's writing is simply about an offering... but is it about an offering, or is it about Paul loving the people at Achaia to the extent that he would boast of them in all of his travels, clinging to his memories of them as the nights became long and the way became rough?
I can't help but believe that God is far less concerned about menstruation and offerings and far more concerned about our lives of faith.
I wonder if, sometimes, when the texts seem one-dimensional and boring, God is really beckoning us to dig deeper, to look to the margins of the page, to see what jumps out at us. This isn't a way to make the Bible say something other than what it says, but I think it's a way to go deeper into what it says, to invite us in to ask questions, to enter the debate, to wrestle with how our world looks and works with how the world ought to look and ought to work.
Maybe it's just about the superficial stuff... but, the more time I spend in the Bible and the more time I spend in the life of faith and the life of the church, I find it to be less and less about the superficial stuff and more and more about to what lies beyond the surface.
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