Hey all… sorry I haven’t blogged at you in a while.  Here’s a post I’ve been meaning to make for a while.  I recently read Scot McKnight’s latest release “The Blue Parakeet – Rethinking How You Read the Bible“.  My overall review is a huge thumbs up.  Here are 5 shortcuts that he says many of us take in reading the Bible.

1. Morsels of Law – viewing the Bible only as a compendium of commandments
2. Morsels of Blessing – viewing the Bible as simply 1001 promises from God
3. Mirrors and Inkblots – viewing the Bible as a mirror or a Rorschach ink blot upon which we project whatever we want
4. Puzzling together the Pieces -  With this approach we treat the Bible as a brain-teaser and try to puzzle together the pieces to map God’s mind.
5. Maestro’s – looking at the Bible only through the perspective of one author.  This often happens in evangelical circles when we view the rest of the Bible through Paul rather than a balanced view of the entire Bible.  This shortcut was the hardest for me to wrap my head around.

Scot’s answer is that we read the Bible as a Story.  It is a story made up of stories and we each have our place within the story.  I have found that viewing the Bible as The Story has affected my entire spirituality.  The story of Creation::Fall::Incarnation::Redemption::Re-Creation has changed everything for me.

Anyway, I highly recommend the book as well as Scot’s excellent blog (much better than mine!)

We had our Remembrance Day observance this morning at church.  We had a pilot from the armed forces share about his work flying wounded soldiers home and then he read a poem by Robert Service called “Young Fellow My Lad”.  I’ve linked it here.  It was very moving and makes a great alternative for to John Macrae’s “In Flanders Fields” which we’ve all heard many times.