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Last month, the New York Times Sunday Book Review published an essay titled “The Book of Books: What Literature Owes the Bible, “  in  which Marilynn Robinson, herself an author, ponders how deeply the Bible is intertwined with contemporary literature.

Robinson notes that “Biblical allusions can suggest a degree of seriousness or significance their context in a modern fiction does not always support.”  The power of such images arises from the truth “that in the culture there is a well of special meaning to be drawn upon that can make an obscure death a martyrdom and a gesture of forgiveness an act of grace.”

What she points to is the power of story, both in the Bible and in literature, to get at depths of human experience and wonder. Stories not only connect to one another by sharing

common human themes, but begin to interpret one another as the characters, situations, and interactions unfold again and again in new and different situations.

How have you experienced such a “dreaming forward” of a Bible story in your own life and experience?

Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’

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The church that I pastored years ago was located in a downtown area and was surrounded by more than 75 residential care homes for people who suffered from various kinds of “unclean spirits”—mental disabilities, alcohol and drug addiction, previous jail time. It was not uncommon for someone to “cry out” during a worship service—to voice their pain or disappointment, to frighten away their torments, to disagree with the preacher.

Imagine such a person in one of your customary gatherings. How might you and others react? What might there be about such a one that would put you or others “on altert”? When the individual began to disrupt the service, or the meeting, or the class, what would be foremost in your mind—the individual? The community? The purpose for which you were gathered?

- Andy Kille

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Last week, a new Bible commentary was announced that would “seek to counter a prevailing view of women’s equality in the church and home.” You can read the story on the Associated Baptist Press website.

Published by the Southern Baptist Convention, the Women’s Evangelical Commentary seeks to instruct women in “biblical womanhood,” not “just what the world says about women.”

Managing editor Rhonda Kelley says that Bible students “are just stunned” by the contrast between “what the Bible teaches about us as women” and “what the world’s perspective has been.” “Really, feminism has crept within our churches and even into our seminary homes,” she said.

It’s just one more example of the struggle between conflicting understandings of what the Bible is and how it should be read. Are the limitations on women in scripture the residue of culturally-bound attitudes, or are they the eternal intention of God for all time? Are we challenged to conform our behavior to ancient worlds and texts, or to discover new insights into our contemporary world? Who gets to decide what “biblical womanhood” is?

What do you think?

Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

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When I do Bridgebuilder™ conflict resolution consulting with congregations and non-profits I spend several hours helping the leadership and congregants to understand emotional systems.  A primary focus is upon the difference between reacting and responding during anxious times.  For example, anxiety is ever-present.  It never goes away and it can always escalate. When we manage our anxiety, we are able to stay in our head.  Our ability to use our neo-cortex (the “thinking” part of the brain) to help us name whatever makes us anxious, mull things and possibilities over, ask questions, and then make mature choices rules.  That’s true even in an emergency requiring “immediate” action.  Just witness how professional first responders are trained to go thoughtfully toward a life-threatening situation when everyone around them is running away from it. 

In other words, when our anxiety is not managed in a “threatening” situation, our reptilian brain rules and it hijacks our thinking functions.  We merely react instead of responding by entering a fight or flight mode.

I’ve often thought about these two possibilities when reading this week’s passage.  Had the brothers considered leaving for a long time and now the moment to do so had arrived?  Or were they in a really bad place in terms of family, job, prospects, etc. and this was an unforeseen, immediate escape route from their anxieties?  Looking at it both ways helps me see the cost versus the promise having reacted anxiously out of my gut and emotions instead of responding thoughtfully to a situation, problem, or challenge during “life-threatening” circumstances.

- Caren Goldman

The 400th anniversary year of the King James Version is now over, but it is still interesting to ponder what the world would be like without the profound influence of that translation of the Bible not only on Christian worship and practice, but on the language, metaphors, and poetry of the English Language. As one believer is said to have stated, “if the King James Version was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it’s good enough for me!”

Over at Christian Century, Mark Noll, Professor of History at Notre Dame University,  suggests what the impact might have been if the King James Bible had never existed. Some of the costs he imagines are “awkwardness” in corporate worship and problems with Bible memorization. On the other hand, the promises might well have included less of an inclination in Protestant Christianity to believe that the Bible offers a singular message. Furthermore, the KJV provided a perspective on slavery and servanthood that allowed supporters of slavery in the Americas to argue that slavery had divine sanction.

Because the King James Version now holds such a respected place in Protestant history, we forget how controversial it was four hundred years ago. Noll invites us to remember both the good and the ill:

When the KJV became the cultural and literary standard for the entire English-speaking world, it was easier to focus on the literary excellence of the translation without stopping to face the divine imperatives and promises that are any Bible’s primary reason for existence. The pervasive cultural presence of this Bible also made it easy to exploit scriptural words, phrases, images, and allusions for their evocative power, even when those uses contradicted the Bible’s basic spiritual meaning.

John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “Where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.”

Wonder how this story from John might reflect part of your own story. Who first told you something about Jesus? Parents, Sunday School teacher, minister, or even seminary professor? What do you recall them saying to you? What was it that led you to follow after Jesus? Had Jesus turned to you as he does to the two disciples and asked “What are you looking for?” what might you have answered? As a child, teenager, young adult? What are you looking for today as you follow Jesus? Hoping to find, discover, learn, become what? How has Jesus told you to “Come and see”? Where has following Jesus led you to go? What have you seen? John speaks of Jesus as “the lamb of God.” From where you have been and with what you have seem how do you now describe Jesus? How did you follow him today? Where did you find him staying? What did you see?

- Bill Dols

Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word . . .”

What is it about this encounter that convinces Simeon that he is, at last, dismissed? What has he been waiting for? What is the word that assured him through these days, months, years? What might he do tomorrow? Will there be a new task, a new commission? I wonder.- Andy Kille

If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I would solve the problem in less than five minutes.

~ Albert Einstein

May the year ahead be filled with the right questions!

Happy Holidays, and a Blessed New Year

Tending Flocks and Following Stars

All day I tend
the things of this world,
herding tasks and children
like so many cats.

But by night
I tend another flock—
forgotten selves
like so many sheep,
longing to be recognized
and pulled into the fold.

Their white fleeces glow
so brightly upon the landscape
that, from my sentinel position
in this twisted dream oak,

they appear as stars—
each cluster of warm bodies
a constellation as compelling
as those distant, twinkling suns
above me.

Or are those suns below?
My perspective is shattered.
Twinkling and bleating
become a single song.

In the distance, a lone light
calls to me. Is it a sheep
or a star? Someone tells me
not to be afraid—

but I don’t know
which way is down (or up).
I don’t know how to get out
of a tree that is rooted
in both directions.

- Kathie Collins

Growing up in church, I collected a number of Bibles by my teenage years. There were many Bibles in our house, and to distinguish my scripture from those of my parents or brother, I would write my name on the inside cover or one of the pages thereafter.

College, seminary and some years of ministry passed before I fully realized the inadvertent symbolism of the now-worn Bibles bearing my name: scripture is molded by individual believers, whether consciously or not. The reader, in short, becomes the owner of the text.

He explores how the Bible is read to support all manner of individual perspectives, but then notes:

Many of us own the Bible in both dimensions: at times we force scripture to reflect our personal prejudices or desires, and in other instances we permit it to feed the “better angels of our nature.”

You can find the full column at the Baptist Studies Bulletin.