Bible Study is starting

Ok, so I have a bible study beginning--very fabulous--and I want to basically use this time with people to reintroduce the bible to them. I want to hear (if they wish to share) everybody's understanding/experience with the bible. We all pretty much have one, even if it isn't much. I am curious because people have many different ideas about what the bible is and what it should be. For some, their experience of the Scriptures has been fabulous, life-changing and powerful. For others, this book has been nothing more than a weapon to discriminate against those who might be different. Remember that movie, Saved? Well, there's a scene in there when, during a heated argument, one girl throws the bible at another (who is in the process of walking away) and hits her in the back with it, all the while screaming about the love of Jesus. Yeah, for some, it's kinda like that. Fortunately, most of us don't believe in bible-throwing.

However, what I've been running into in my conversations with people is an understanding or outside perception, that the bible exists to tell people how to live. I think most of us have had or now have this take on the good book. Hence, when they read it (if they ever do) it reads flat, like reading a phone book. This means then that engagement with the bible is one-dimensional meaning then that it is there to provide information that should go into our heads and stay there. We have to then believe what the bible tells us like we believe what we read in a social studies book. I have one thing to say about this: NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO! This is not what the bible does or is.

The bible is a story--a narrative of a people and their experience of God in the world. In being a story, the bible is then capable of engaging us as whole persons and not just our minds. It is meant to engage our minds and our emotions: our loves, our fears, our anger, or even our utter despair. This means a few things. 1) We can't read it in tiny little verses. Chopping up the bible and taking meaning from a single line of text is like taking a symphony, killing off all the musicians save for one triangle player and having her play, and only her. What's left? Nothing except that one little tinkle of sound which has been robbed of the richness of the composition that would be surrounding it if only the symphony was still around to accompany. The bible is too wonderful to be broken up this way, and far too complicated. 2) It would help to spend some time with the bible, without reading it. It may be that for some, they need to hear the bible read out loud, in its various translations so as to let the story come to life. This may mean acting out part of the story if that's what it takes. 3) The bible is authoritative, but as a story and not as a lawbook. Tricky concept, but doable.

Ok, enough for today!