It's a Story...Not a Textbook

"Spiritual theology, using Scripture as text, does not present us with a moral code and tell us 'Live up to this'; nor does it set out a system of doctrine and say, 'Think like this and you will live well.'  The biblical way is to tell a story and in the telling invite: 'Live into this - this is what it looks like to be human in this God-made and God-ruled world; this is what is involved in becoming and maturing as a human being.'"

- Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, p. 43-44

One of my favorite things about the Scripture is that it is not written in a way to flatter us.  It's a story - the good, the bad and the ugly.  One of the things I am trying to recapture is reading it the way it was written and not how I've necessarily been taught.  I have been taught, whether intentional or not, to study the bible and then apply it to my life.  I have read it as a moral code or a systematic theology.  While the bible has within its pages, a code of morality and a system of doctrine, it was not written to be read that way.  It was written mostly in narrative form and it invites me into the stories that are within the pages.  If I am going to honor the holy pages, then I must not read to see what the bible can give me, but read in such a way to discover where I fit into this meta-narrative.  When I read this way, I submit to the story.  I do not use the story to figure out ways to meet my wants, needs and feelings.  I read to engage in the story that is there.  I am in the story of Abraham and Sarah, I'm in the story of Daniel, I'm in the story of Peter and of Paul.

"When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories, but our stories in God's."

- Peterson, p. 44

How different will by reading be when I grasp these truths?  How much richer will the stories be when I read them as a story, not as a school text?  I want to learn to savor the story.  Chew on it.  Taste it.  I want to eat this book.

Eat This Book

I am currently reading in a new book called Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. Eugene Peterson, the translator for The Message version of the Bible, writes this book in order to "pull the Christian Scriptures back from the margins of the contemporary imagination where they have been so rudely elbowed by their glamourous competitors, and reestablish them at the center as the text for living the Christian life deeply and well." I am intrigued by this book because I have become one of those who has pushed the Scriptures to the margins of my imagination. I didn't mean to. I didn't set out to replace the Scriptures with anything else. I grew up in a denomination that has, throughout history, fought vigorously over the authority of the Scriptures. I believe that the Bible is authoritative. How did I get here, then?


I got here by slowly replacing the Bible with other good books. Early in my faith, it seemed to be Max Lucado. Then I moved along to other writers like John Ortberg, Philip Yancey, John Piper, Donald Miller and Rob Bell. These are great writers who I believed were continually challenging me to look deeper into life and how the Bible fit into that life. The problem is not the writers or their books, the problem is that I was looking to see how the Scriptures fit into my life and not looking at the Scriptures to see how my life fit into them. It's a subtle difference, but it has landed me at a place where it's easier to pick up another book than to pick up The Book. It's ironic to me that God is using one of those books to change the way I think about reading His Book.

As I continue through this book, I'm going to let my challenges be your challenges for the next several days.  As I read, I will post.  One of the marks of a great book is that it makes me stop, exhale and think about what I'm reading.  For this book, you will get to experience the exhale and thoughts.  If you want to get the book and read along with me, that would be great, but you don't have to.  I'm just letting you into my thought-world for a few days.

Chapter 1 - The Holy Community at Table With Holy Scripture

Revelation 10.9 (TNIV)     So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’ ”  10 I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 

In the final book of the Bible, the angel of the Lord uses an interesting metaphor in relation to the Scriptures.  Or is it a metaphor?  The word he uses is the word katesthio which is not light snack or nibble, but an eating up or devouring.  It was often used with animals of prey, as they would devour their food.

As John, heard the angel say these words there is a good chance he recalled similar commands given to two other great prophets centuries earlier (Ezekiel 2:8-3:3; Jeremiah 15:16).  The emphasis by the angel is that the "scroll" (John's bible) was to be devoured.  It was to be consumed in a manner as if the one eating was on the brink of starvation.  Ezekiel, Jeremiah and John all came to the understanding that they were to take the written words of God and ingest them in a way that would work the text out into their lives.

I grew up with a different understanding of reading.  I read in order to gain the right information to pass the test.  The goal for reading was never taught to be a transformational experience, but rather an informational one.  I have learned, in recent years, the art of letting a book get into me and change me.  Now my desire is to begin reading the Bible this way.  As a pastor, it's easy to always read the Bible with an eye to teaching others.  It's much more difficult to eat it on my own...to let it sink in...to live it out.

Now the journey begins.  Let the Holy Scriptures return to their Holy Place of prominence in the life of this Christ-follower.  May my life be shaped by what the text says and not what someone says about the text.  Let me listen to the community of faith in a healthy way, helpful to my understanding but not my sole understanding.  I want to Eat His Book.