A Fresh Suggestion for Encountering the Bible (Part 2)/ Vince Brackett (Chicago, IL)
As I mentioned before yesterday’s post, we’ve divvied up this week’s guest blogger entry into two short posts, since both addressed a similar subject. If you missed yesterday’s post (and I can’t see how you would have missed it, given that it was Thanksgiving and all) check it out, as Otto has some provocative things to say, as does Vince today. Tell us what you think! - Dave
I was trained to understand the Bible as an instructions manual, in which I see my situation from the perspective of the character in the passage at hand and draw life lessons from that. There’s value in that, but I’m wondering if that’s all there is.
So, rather than the 'instructions' approach, what if we considered a 'mystical & experiential' approach, in which God, not the character in the passage, is the protagonist? In this approach, the Bible won't tell me what to do in a given situation. It won't give me instructions. But it will tell me about and point me toward God, who I can then go and ask myself for instruction.
A case study: Luke 1:5-38 tells the story of the foretellings of the births of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Jesus to Mary. I have seen this scripture interpreted before with an 'instructions for me' approach: Zech & Mary are the main characters in whose shoes we are to put ourselves, with Mary’s obedience positively contrasted with Zech’s lack of it.
But maybe we wonder a bit: Weren't Zech and Mary's responses to Gabriel pretty much the same? So why was Zech struck mute and not Mary? And why such a harsh punishment?
What if we treat God as the main character? With that, I get a different message: First, I see God having a very specific and ordered plan for how he wants to bring these two children into the world. So specific and ordered, it seems, that he has to strike this priest mute so he won't blab anything ahead of time to all his friends. And then I see a theme that I have seen elsewhere in the Bible: I see God exalting someone without status (a teenage girl) instead of someone with it (a male priest).
I obviously do not know for sure that this is what God had in mind, but this does reveal a protagonist God who is thoughtful, in-charge, and planning something (even if I can only speculate as to what that is), things I missed in my previous—and ultimately unsatisfying—“instructions for life” reading. Now, I'd say God and I have some real talking points.




This is one area where my new age past has served me well. Through my various seasons of spiritual furniture moving, mediating, and spouting affirmations, I got used to the idea that faith is something you do--that there's a participatory component to it that isn't dependent on how I'm feeling in any given moment.
This helped me when I started following Jesus. Some mornings, the Bible seemed alive with exciting possibilities God put there just for me, and prayer felt like I'd found the hotline to heaven. But then there were the other days--when the Bible was the strangest, most depressing collection of stories I'd ever seen, and talking to God seemed only slightly less ludicrous than conversing with my dog.
But I'd made a decision to pursue this path--so I kept on keeping on. And the results have been pretty great. The stage 4 life, for me at least, involves some practices that look like Stage 2. The difference is that I know WHY I'm doing these things--it's to connect with the living God, rather than just to get my "This is what good Christians do" stamp.