Eat This Book :: Lectio Divina

Today, I continued my reading of Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book.  I have moved into part two of the book and today I began Chapter 7 "Ears Thou Hast Dug for Me."  I have to admit that he's gotten a little "heady" and I'm going to wade gently through the posting waters here because so much of what I am reading today is wrapped in the context of what I've read in the previous six chapters.  But nonetheless, I said I'd let you enter my world of reading this book, so here we go.

"So, lectio divina...A way of reading that refuses to be reduced to just reading but intends the living of the text, listening and responding to the voices of that "so great a cloud of witnesses" telling their stories, singing their songs, preaching their sermons, praying their prayers, asking their questions, having their children, burying their dead, following Jesus."  - Peterson, p. 90.

Lectio divina is a spiritual discipline, developed and passed down from our ancestors, which helps us to recover the livelihood of context and relationships that are weaved throughout the Scriptures.  The discipline is comprised of four basic elements: lectio (read the text), meditatio (meditate on the text), oratio (pray the text) and contemplatio (live the text).

Over the past couple of years, I have written all of my studies using this simple format, including our current INTAKE 2 Go and our Kids' take-home materials.  It's simple - Read, Think, Pray and Live.  Today, my reading centered around the lectio, or reading component.

I have already posted that how we read our Bible is probably more important than that we read it.  Reading it incorrectly can cause much more damage than good.  Peterson focuses on the issue of "metaphor" when listening to the Scriptures.  A metaphor states something as true, which is literally not true.  He cites biblical examples like, "God is a rock," "the Lord is my shepherd," and "I am a rose of Sharon" to illustrate his point.

For those of us who are intent on taking the bible seriously, metaphor plays an interesting role.  We must not assume that seriously equals literally.  We must learn to listen to the Bible's metaphors and its literal writings together.  The danger in my religious heritage is to minimize metaphor or to attempt to literalize it and in doing so we strip the text of its richness and meaning.

Metaphors are meant to enhance what is otherwise inconceivable.  When discussing the transcendent God, there is no better use of language than metaphor.  Rather than diminishing the subject, in this case God, it opens our understanding of who He is and what He is like.  Metaphor reveals the connectedness of our stories.  God is connected to us, we are connected to each other.  Metaphor is often the bridge that connects our varying worlds together.

Okay, enough of the lesson for today.  My take-away from the reading today was that I need to embrace the biblical metaphors rather than attempt to dissect them away or literalize them.  Because "the primary organ for receiving God's revelation is not the eye that sees, but the ear that hears," I want to transform my reading of the Bible into a hearing of God's word.

Eat This Book: Let Anyone with Ears to Hear Listen!

"Listening is what we do when someone speaks to us; reading is what we do when someone writes to us." - Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, p. 87

For the past 24 hours, I have pondered this quote and what it means to my reading of the Bible.  In one sense, it is a book and it has ink on the pages, so it is something that has been written.  However, it wasn't written to me.  I mean, it doesn't say, "Dear Brad, I write this letter to you..."  I am reading letters written to other people at other times in other circumstances.  It's like eavesdropping on someone else's correspondence.  I've heard preachers my whole life tell me that the Bible was written to me and for me, but after three years in seminary and several classes on the structure of the Bible, I discovered that my name is nowhere to be found!  Moses didn't know me, Solomon didn't know me, David didn't know me and none of the prophets knew me.  Neither did Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, Paul, James and whoever wrote Hebrews.

I am just now finding a certain "okay" about this, too.  It's okay that my name isn't written in the pages of the Bible because the Story written in the pages of my Bible is not contained to those pages.  The revelation of God in my life did not stop when John set his pen down after writing the final word in Revelation.  God continues to reveal Himself to me, He continues to show us who He is and what He is doing in our world today.  More often than not, He speaks to us through the stories that He made sure were included in what we call The Bible.  The Holy Scriptures serve as the divine plum-line for our stories.  Everything is to be held up to the Text, to determine whether or not it is true and part of the bigger revelation of God.

If I view the Bible as mine, then I have missed something important and it could be potentially dangerous.  I bought a leather covered bible, but I don't own the Word of God.  God is the one who is sovereign in this Story, not me.  I cannot pick and choose to do with the words whatever I want.  I must approach the Bible as it is, a living revelation of God - extending into my world today.  As I read with this sort of understanding, I find not that the books contained were written to me, but that God is actually "speaking" to me.  I am not just reading the Bible, but I am also "listening" to the biblical story.  Hearing the Story, allows us to participate.  Hearing the Story is what moves the Bible from a book on our night stand to a living conversation with the One who put it all together and is involved in our daily lives.  Hearing the Story is listening to God.

Listening often involves more details than reading.  Last year, I read a book called A New Kind of Christian (in my book list).  I thought the book was good and I was engaged.  But then, I decided to get the audio format to carry with me.  I listened to the book the second time.  I was much more engaged in the story as I listened then when I read.  When I read, I was analyzing and critiquing, but when I listened, I felt like I was in the coffee shop with the two men.  I could hear the inflection in their voices, and I could imagine the settings where they walked and talked - and I was there, too!

Listening to the Story of the Bible involves more than just reading.  It means we need to dig a little deeper and know a little more than just what is written on the pages.  Each part of the Story is written in a particular context.  The more context we know, the more the Story comes alive.  All of us have probably experienced this in a sermon or a bible study where the teacher opened up the Story by telling us details of the author and recipient, the locale and the circumstance, that made the Story jump off the page.  The great thing about today is that no one has to have a seminary degree to learn the context of the Story.  There are plenty of tools in our bookstores or online that will help us open up the context of the Story so we can listen rather than just read.  I will work on a post with some of the tools later.

For now, are you tracking with me?  Are you feeling the difference I'm talking about?  Can you hear  what I am writing, or are you just reading?  I'm tired of reading the Bible and I'm ready to listen to the Story!