Making the Familiar Fresh

As a pastor I am always thinking about what I should be preaching about. Usually I have a long list of potential sermon topics and series ideas but sometimes choosing one to work on can be a challenge. For the last month or so (and for two more weeks) I’ve been preaching a series called “The Bible’s Greatest Hits.” The idea has been to teach on passages that are very familiar to many of us within the church and known to many outside of church from one setting or another. The idea was hopefully to make the familiar fresh. This is the list of “greatest hits” I came up with:

#1: Psalm 23
#2: The Ten Commandments
#3: John 3:16
#4: The Lord’s Prayer
#5: Isaiah 40 (especially verses 27 – 31)
#6: 1 Corinthians 13

Sometimes the challenge is that we’ve heard certain Scriptures read so frequently that we lose their meaning. I think this can be the case with Psalm 23 and John 3:16. With other Scriptures the challenge is to see the passage in its context, because we can have the tendency to interpret them independent of the chapters and verses that surround them. Given that 1 Corinthians 13 is often used at weddings proves my point since this chapter falls in the middle of Paul’s discussion of congregational worship and spiritual gifts. It is not first and foremost a description of marriage love even if we can apply the truth of that passage to married life.

Last week when I talked about The Lord’s Prayer I essentially made two points: First, prayer is a privilege that comes when we place our faith in Jesus. Being able to address God as Father, or Abba, is a privilege for those who, as Paul puts it in Galatians 4, “receive adoption to sonship.” Second, prayer has a pattern according to Jesus; that is, there is an order to our praying. Or there ought to be. Since so often our prayers are dominated by health issues and immediate circumstances, it’s important to observe that biblical prayers (I have the prayers of Paul in mind here) almost always have to do with growth in Christian maturity and growing closer to God—with putting God’s glory, kingdom, and will ahead of everything else.

We can also wrongly interpret passages or miss their depth when we isolate them from their context. Isaiah 40 is a good example of this. Verse 31, the one about eagles’ wings and one often embroidered on wall hangings or engraved on other decorative items, is indeed a comforting verse. But often we miss the fact that these words are at the end of a passage insisting that despite Israel’s experience of exile God is sovereign and powerful, that he intends to redeem his people, and that God’s people are being called to trust in him and draw comfort from the fact that contrary to outward appearances God remains in control. He has not forgotten his people and will eventually use them as a witness to his character and to display his glory.

Anyway, it’s been interesting and refreshing to take a look at these popular and well-known passages of Scripture. A series like this is particularly enjoyable for me as a pastor because of the variety of texts involved. This is especially so since at Easter I finished a series on Mark’s gospel that I began last September. What I’ll preach and teach about once I’ve gone through all these “greatest hits,” I haven’t decided yet. But the wonderful thing is that there is more than enough Scripture to choose from.

Stronger Than Death

In case any of you were wondering, I asked permission of the couple who inspired this post for permission to include it on my blog. They were more than happy for me to post these thoughts.

Marriage involves serious commitment of a kind not called for in any other relationship. No other human relationship requires that we take vows publicly. And no other relationship fastens one person to another regardless of circumstance or mood; that is, one’s commitment to a marriage partner is not conditioned by the loss of romantic feelings or by misfortune. Consenting to marriage is, therefore, consenting to be this person’s exclusive covenant partner, friend, confidante, and lover through the various experiences of life. It’s a recognition that in this person one has found love. And love means there is a mutual willingness to share a life of fidelity. Whatever else may change, this allegiance is not to alter.

These days the significance of marriage is eroding. Whether we’re talking about divorce, the prevalence of common-law relationships in our culture or the rising (or so it seems) support (legal and social) for same-sex marriage, the value of one man and one woman committing themselves wholeheartedly to one another has become more difficult to discern for many. Especially in a social climate where relationships have become more about personal fulfillment (whether consciously or not), finding relational meaning through sacrificial love is almost quaint.

All this is on my mind for a simple reason. I recently had the privilege of presiding over a young couple’s marriage. Actually, I had this privilege twice! If that seems strange, it’s because the circumstances in this case were exceptional. The first wedding ceremony was held in the event the groom would not be in sufficiently good health to make it to the intended wedding date. Without wanting to sound overly grim, we couldn’t be certain whether he’d even be alive by the actual wedding date. For the last two years he’s been struggling with cancer and this past winter was told it was terminal. Over the last couple of months, his health has worsened. So this is why they asked if I could marry them sooner—they wanted to be sure they would be married.

This situation is exceptional in more than one way. First and most obviously the majority of couples, especially young ones, don’t find themselves having to face the possibility that one of them might die and soon. Maybe especially when we are younger, we tend to live as though we are immortal. We don’t give a lot of thought to our own mortality, at least not willingly. If we do, usually that’s because we are given good reason to do so.

But the other way in which this situation is exceptional is that this couple decided to press forward with the decision to marry even though they had no guarantee that their marriage would last longer than a few months. In purely medical or scientific terms, the chances were not good. Outside of a miracle, the bride would become a widow sooner than later. Yet they married. I think this exceptional because in a day and age when marriage has become a question of convenience and, Lord have mercy, disposable, such a decision—conceivable or not by us—stands as a testimony to its true meaning and purpose as a covenant, not to mention putting real flesh and blood on that part of the traditional wedding vows that say, “in sickness and in health . . . as long as we both shall live.” Rarely do such words resonate as strongly as they do here.

Thinking of this brings to mind these words from Song of Solomon 8:6, 7:

Place me like a seal over your heart,

like a seal on your arm;

for love is as strong as death,

its jealousy unyielding as the grave.

It burns like blazing fire,

like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;

rivers cannot wash it away.

If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love,

it would be utterly scorned.

Talking to some people, I know that not all would see this marriage as wise. Some wondered whether they would do the same thing in the same situation. I confess, too, that I had similar questions in my mind. The question, put bluntly, is this: would you still get married if your fiancé was terminally ill and, in all likelihood, did not have long to live? Put another way, would you want to go through with a wedding if you knew that you would have to go through a funeral for the very same person within the span of a few months or even weeks? Honestly, on one level I can see how neither answer (yes or no) would be an easy one.

At both wedding ceremonies, the groom in question praised the commitment of his bride, particularly the fact that she never once complained and never once wavered in her commitment. Certainly it would be understandable if she had; but she didn’t, despite what to some would be seen as an impossible situation. How many others would have cut and run, chasing instead their dream of long-life and marriage rather than demonstrating such a selfless and sacrificial love?

In the movie Shadowlands, which portrays the relationship and eventual marriage of Christian author C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham, we see Lewis and Gresham face a very similar circumstance. In fact, as portrayed in the movie, their wedding ceremony takes place in her hospital room where she’s being treated for cancer. In a tender moment, Joy says to Lewis something like, “The pain now is a part of the happiness then.” That is, as soon as we open ourselves to the possibility of love we also open ourselves to the possibility (and likelihood) of pain. What we love we can lose, and losing what we love always hurts. Only avoiding the vulnerability required of love frees us from the pain of losing what we love. But ultimately this involves a much deeper, more profound loss.

No small wonder that Scripture likens the relationship between God and Israel (Hosea) and between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:25 – 33) to the relationship between a husband and wife. Both are covenants. Both call for unconditional love and fidelity. Both relationships are unchanging regardless of changing circumstances. Indeed, in the case of Jesus he ultimately and willingly died for his bride—and did so to save her, to demonstrate his commitment to her.

And marriage, contrary to the thinking of many today, is about a dying to self, an instance of the gospel—and kingdom life—taking shape in a practical day to day relationship where such a commitment is needed if the relationship is to last at all. Without the willingness to die to one’s own interests and desires and the idea that marriage is about what I get out of it, any marriage will crumble.

So when I watched and officiated over this young couple’s wedding(s), I confess to being amazed. Amazed and touched. It was a privilege for me to participate. And for those who witnessed their commitment—and who will continue to—and still have questions over the wisdom of their choice and whether they could do likewise, I understand. But all I know is that their example is close to the example of Christ’s love for us—a love not conditioned by changing circumstances but instead shaped by the insistence that the love marriage requires “is as strong as death.” In the case of this couple, perhaps it’s even stronger.

Why I'm Sometimes a Closet Gnostic (or Why the Incarnation Necessitates a Spirituality of Earth-Bound Realism)

Sometimes I’m a closet Gnostic. Put another way, sometimes, I must confess, I wish there was something to Gnosticism.

But before I go any further, let me first explain the term “Gnostic.” Without getting into a lot of scholarly detail, Gnosticism comes from the Greek term for knowledge, gnosis. It refers to a collection of religious groups that emerged in the first decades of Christianity. Here are a few details about Gnosticism. If any of you out there are NT scholars or experts on this subject matter, feel free to correct any errors or oversights. I’m not aspiring to academic perfection at the moment.

The first identifying characteristic of Gnosticism—as indicated by its name—is that it is a form of spirituality and religious practice that is based on secret knowledge into which its members have to be initiated. It’s about being in the know, and is elitist: “I know something that you don’t know!”

Another element that is characteristic of most forms of Gnosticism is its disdain of the material world. That is, this is a form of spirituality that says our bodies, our physical existence, all of our earthly entanglements, are bad. People practice Gnostic forms of religion in order to escape and achieve freedom from the physical and material.

This is the aspect of Gnostic religious practice that, in opposition to sound biblical theology, I unconsciously (and occasionally consciously) long for: a spirituality, a form of religious practice, a faith commitment, that frees me from all of the earth-bound considerations that face us every day by virtue of living in the world that God has made.

So in what specific sense do I sometimes long to be Gnostic?

Let me say, to begin, that life is messy. Life can be complicated. Life can be difficult. Each of us is implicated—unless we practice isolationism of some form!—in a multitude of relationships: families, neighbours, co-workers, fellow church members, friends. And the more people are involved in our lives, the more relationships we are in, the more likely we are to experience just how messy and complicated life can be.

Here’s an analogy that is close to home for me. Our house, especially right now with getting used to our new twin boys, is often messy and cluttered. There are kids’ toys in most rooms. Piles of clutter decorate various surface areas. There is always some house work to do.

Now if I lived on my own—if I were single—no doubt I could keep my house clean pretty easily. For example, if I were single, it would be considerably easier to keep my bathroom clean. But because I have a wife and a few kids (admittedly, the twins are less able to contribute directly to our mess!), it is considerably more difficult to keep the bathroom clean.

Here’s the thing: I would absolutely love it if my bathroom (not to mention the rest of my house) were mess-free and pretty much always clean. But only if I were on my own would this be remotely possible. As time progresses and my twin boys grow from infancy to toddler-hood to adolescence, it will be even harder to keep our house as I’d like.

So here’s the choice: a full, loving family or a clean house, a network of meaningful, intimate relationships or a home free of mess. You see, the former will not lead to the latter. Avoiding the former is the only way to (potentially) avoid the latter.

The quandary is as follows: most of us aren’t terribly fond of mess, either in our homes, our relationships, or in our churches. So we try and manipulate these various realms of life so that we can minimize the mess as much as possible; to do so most successfully means having to avoid relationships of consequence altogether.

Apply this to spirituality or faith practice. Because of life’s complications and entanglements, we often hope, whether we realize it or not, for some form of release or escape from these complications. Often this is why we pursue religious practice. We think that being religious may allow us to transcend or get away from all those things that cause mess in our lives.

I know that I can sometimes feel this way. I want to be able to pray away life’s messes. I want, as a closet Gnostic, to have a form of spirituality that separates me from all these messes rather than one which helps me in the midst of them. I want a relationship with God that helps me walk on clouds all day rather than one which keeps my feet planted on terra firma. I want my bathroom clean, in other words.

We can’t have God without other people. The greatest commandment is “Love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength,” and the second is very much like it, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” You can’t have one without the other. The letter of 1 John makes this crystal clear: “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (4:20).

But to love other people means having to accept the likelihood of messes.

In fact, God himself accepted the likelihood of such mess too. The opening of 1 John testifies to the fact that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh: “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it.”

When John speaks about what was from the beginning, what was heard, seen, and touched, the life that was revealed, he is talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God made flesh. He is talking about the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity—the Godhead—took on flesh, bone, and blood, and did so as the ultimate expression of divine love and grace, and in so doing, revealed the heart of God.

At the start of his Gospel, John puts it this way: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Peterson, in his paraphrase The Message, says, “The Word became flesh and moved in to the neighbourhood.” I like that. God moved in next door, across the hall, across the street. God, in Jesus, is in the neighbourhood. Theologians call this the doctrine of the incarnation: God made man.

That this is so means that God takes with ultimate seriousness our physical, material existence and that our relationship with him is not about escaping this reality but living in relationship with God in the midst of this reality.

Gnosticism doesn’t sit comfortably with the incarnation. Incarnational theology, in contrast with a Gnostic theology, practices a faith of involvement and engagement rather than escape and avoidance. It is more apt to dive into the mess than run away from it. For some of us human beings, this takes getting some used to.

Incarnational theology brings us back to the Genesis-affirmation, when God said: “It is good,” speaking of the world he made. Bringing our world into existence was not an accidental by-product of some other divine act but an act of divine will and purpose, an expression not of God’s need for human beings and a universe but rather of his desire to have a creation to share in the love that he enjoys in himself from all eternity.

So God made this world and said, “It is good.” He also entered this world. The Word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood. And to love God—to live truthfully—we also have to love one another, and there’s no way to do this and avoid life’s messes at the same time. There’s just no way, no matter how much I may sometimes wish there were, to be a follower of Jesus—the Word made flesh—and indulge my closet Gnosticism at the same time.

Location, Location, Location!

Our church is sort hard to find for some. If you don't know the area well, you might just get lost while on your way. And it's also on a street that's out of the way, not a main thoroughfare. We don't get a lot of drive-by traffic. In order to direct people, we do have a small street sign marked with an arrow pointing, with relative accuracy, toward our church. However, our sign is in desperate need of replacement, something I hope will happen this spring. The significance of signage is perhaps worthy of its own post. That's not my main point today. Rather, I'm thinking of that perennial catch-phrase used to express the value of land and real estate: location, location, location.

Once when talking about our church with another pastor, he commented that our church is actually in a terrible location. It should instead be at the bottom of the road that leads into our community where people would immediately see it rather than in a spot that requires a handful of left turns. As it is, our church lacks a certain obvious visibility. It's not about blinking and missing it. It's more about being situated where even if you keep your eyes peeled you're just not likely to drive by casually on the road where our church is.

Some churches, in order to improve their ministry, will take steps to improve their location. I know of one church which is currently engaged in such a re-location project. But of course not all churches have either the calling or the ability to take such measures. For some churches, ours included, our location, whatever it may be, is something with which we simply have to contend.

And this is true of life as a whole. Location defines us. We are where we are. And oftentimes we can't simply pack and move someplace else. The specificity of our location is the result of years of decisions, unforeseen circumstances, the unseen hand of God and, hopefully, all our honest if flawed attempts to listen to and follow God.

Take me, for instance. What is my location? I am geographically located in a small LSD (local service district) where I currently serve as the full-time pastor of a small, rural Baptist church. The area in which I live is not even large enough to be considered a village or town. We have no local municipality. I hadn't even heard of this place before being called as pastor! And of course my being located here has to do with not only with physical location, but a whole plethora of factors.

One of these factors in my locatedness is that I am also married. That I am not a single male also locates me in a specific place. That I am married played a role in my accepting the call as pastor both here and in my previous church. That I am married plays in a huge role in any future locatedness--my wife and I have to be in agreement about any major decisions regarding moving or a change of ministry. Yet another factor is that I am also a father. We have a young daughter who is roughly three and a half years old. This also plays a powerful determining role. Being a parent both is part of my locatedness and determines my locatedness. So family plays a huge role in my present location.

My own personal background--emotional, intellectual, relational, spiritual, etc.--also plays a huge role in my locatedness. Who I am has been shaped by a variety of influences. I am, yes, who God has made me (and continues to make me!), but I am also a product of my parents, family members, childhood experiences, schooling, encounters with people odd and normal, and in fact all of life. I can’t always articulate it precisely, but I can often sense layers of experience playing a role in present day decisions. Simply put, it's like when someone says to you, "You're just like your father!" And that's only one example.

Try as we may, we cannot entirely escape the various layers of locatedness that accumulate over time like sediment to make us what we are. Some aspects of our locatedness may be nothing more than fossils, but when excavated and revealed afresh by a present crisis or major life change or even the stress of everyday life they come to life again. Who hasn't been surprised by how we can find ourselves in a situation where we begin to think, speak, and act as if we were still that nervous middle school kid?

Much of life seems to be about dealing and negotiating with our locatedness. As I said, we are where we are. And if we can't move to another, more pleasant location, then we have to live with our current surroundings.

What I am getting at with all of this? Why have I recklessly abandoned proper grammar to make up a word like ‘locatedness’? Well, when you think of that phrase, ‘location, location, location,’ the obvious implication is that the where of where you are located makes all the difference. Whether your home is located in an upscale suburban neighbourhood or in a poor rural community will determine the price of your home. It indicates value. If you want to be somewhere worth being, then move to a better location.

Sometimes we want to change the particulars of our present location in life. Perhaps our job is unsatisfying. What about that unexplored career path? Do we wish we had made different decisions along the way? Or maybe being a parent is more stressful than we had anticipated. It could be that the kids we had weren’t part of our original plan. We thought we knew our husband or wife better when we married them. Possibly we were hoping for more material prosperity or at least more creature comforts. All in all, life is hardly perfect. Our location is not ideal. And we sometimes entertain thoughts of what re-location might be like.

But, to point out the obvious, we are where we are. Whatever our present location, that’s what we have to contend with. We can’t just quit our jobs, dump the wife, and lose the kids; though many have used such tactics to change their location. Rarely is it this simple, however. And rarely is this a good idea (Well, quitting a job may sometimes be justified). Often such a move is a poor attempt at escapism, or of loosing ourselves from unpleasant constraints in life. As they say, the grass is always greener . . .

But the fact of the matter is all locations have value at least insofar as all locations have redeemable value. That is to say, the God of the Bible is a God who is at work not only on a grand cosmic scale that encompasses galaxies and solar systems, but one who is also at work on our street, down our lane, and in our neighbourhoods and homes. Wherever we find ourselves, there is nowhere we can be where God cannot work to redeem. This means if our marriage is in trouble, God can work redemption there; if our kids are out of control, God can work redemption there; and if we don’t like our job or are struggling with what our job ought to be, God can work redemption there. So in the same moment as I find myself daydreaming or even seriously contemplating re-location, God wants me to know that he can carry out some renovations right where we are, that he can produce something of value even at our current location.

We know this because God himself acquired locatedness in the incarnation, in that most miraculous of moments when eternity entered time, when infinity became bound by limited dimensions. We know that God places eternal value on our present location because he had for a time his own location in space and time. When the Son of God became flesh and blood, the particulars of our lives, the various levels of our locatedness, took on inestimable value. This is often what is called "the scandal of particularity," the idea, offensive to many, that the truth of God revealed in Jesus is true because of its very particularity, specificity, and locatedness. Most would rather see the truth of God as revealed in Jesus as a specific instance of a more general truth that can also be seen elsewhere--this is not the only way God has revealed his truth, but one of many--than consider the possibility that only in Jesus, this particular instance of divine revelation, is the truth of God made known fully and completely. Yet this is what we as Christians believe.

And the particularity of the incarnation means that God takes seriously the here and now of where we are. Whatever our location, God cares. So whereas sometimes we'd prefer a God who would graciously remove us from specific circumstances and lift us up beyond the often messy details of our lives, instead we have a God who--according to the incarnation--"moved into the neighborhood." We have a God who instead enters into our circumstances and is present to us in the midst of them. That God is like this means that while sometimes a move to a new location is a wise decision, often God wants to save us right where we are.

So our church is not located in an ideal spot. Does that mean for God to use us to reach the surrounding community we have to move to another location in the community, that unless we do we are consigned to irrelevancy? Or is it more true to say that no church is located in an ideal spot, that our placement can never be perfect, but that despite this, God can still work miracles, wonders, and redemption in our midst anyway? While it may be true that if our church were located in a more visible spot that we might get more drive-by traffic, more frequent visitors, and have a stronger presence, I also think that we rely too much on the world's way of thinking if we reduce the potential of our church's impact to those factors. Relying too much on the world's way of thinking also makes light of God's power. Certainly he is not limited by what we define as limitations! And certainly God is not limited by location, whether that of our church or our own. To my thinking, then, if God is into real estate, then every location has value, value that comes from and is produced by him, not by any street address or spot on a map. It's all about location, all right, but it is God and not us who ultimately determines the redeemable value of any location.

A Good Mystery . . . Revisited

One of the CDs I've had on my wish list for almost two years now is Bruce Cockburn's most recent effort, Life Short Call Now. I nearly always have a short wish list of CDs that I eventually want to get my hands on. It would probably be a longer list if I had more time to experiment with music and if I was being exposed to a wider variety than I am right now. But, needless to say, as a busy husband, father, and pastor I don't have the luxury of time and money that I once did as a college student to funnel more financial resources toward entertainment and cultural enterprises. I probably procure two or three CDs a year on average so, yes, I am shamefully behind. So when I saw Cockburn's album for $9.99 yesterday, I couldn't resist.

Now Cockburn is an interesting character. While he likely wouldn't fit any remotely evangelical mold, he has described himself as a Christian or at least as someone who believes in Jesus Christ. Many of his songs are permeated with biblical allusions and imagery. There is a definite and specific spiritual bent to his music, one that forms a more hopeful counter-balance to his often caustic and angry political observations. On Life Short Call Now, as on his last studio effort, You've Never Seen Everything, America's involvement in Iraq and its war on terror provides much fuel for the fire. I don't know that I would necessarily agree with all of his politics, I do resonate with his more spiritual ruminations.

One of the songs on his latest, "Beautiful Creatures," is a meditation on the disappearance of anything resembling goodness in the human species, and sounds like a reflection on the fall of man, lamenting the loss it represents: "Like a dam on a river/My conscience is pressed/By the weight of hard feelings/Piled up in my breast/The callous and vicious things humans display/The beautiful creatures are going away." Despite our innate sinfulness that results in the evil that men do, there is still a flicker of transcendence and mystery for those of us with eyes to see and so it might be better to say that if we are monsters that we are good monsters.

But the song that really struck is the third track on the album, "Mystery." And having heard it makes me wish I had heard it in advance of my previous post (Hence the title of this post). In it Cockburn sings, "You can't tell me there is no mystery/mystery, mystery/You can't tell me there is no mystery/It's everywhere I turn/Infinity always gives me vertigo/vertigo, vertigo/Infinity always gives me vertigo/And fills me up with grace." One gets the definite impression that it's this sense of mystery that keeps him afloat whilst facing a world filled with despair, violence, and greed. Amidst all his sharply barbed political observations (diatribes?), one wonders if these observations are informed and shaped at least in part by the instinct that the world and the way that it is is a violation of this very mystery and the truths to which it points.

Sometimes poets and artists have way of expressing truth that is simply lost on the rest of us. A sharp turn of phrase, the clever use of words, and the power of an infectious melody can sometimes say more than volumes of philosophy. This is especially true of mystery, which tends to elude explanation and definition, and requires revelation and inspiration. Some of the most prophetic voices of Scripture are poetic voices and it needs to be said that a book of the Bible's literary genre is not accidental to the truths they express but is an intrinsic part of it. Admittedly, for those of us more interested and more comfortable with prose, this too is something of a mystery. But thankfully it's a good mystery and thankfully there continue to be artists and poets who give voice to this mystery. Otherwise we might never hear the truth as we are meant to hear it.

Getting into the Scriptures (or getting the Scriptures into us!)

One of the things I've been thinking about a great deal lately is Scripture. This is the narrative of our God's dealings with us. It tells us the story of our creation, our sin and disobedience, and our redemption through Jesus and the ultimate victory promised to those who remain faithful to him. It is our source of wisdom, divine instruction, practical advice on how to conduct ourselves as the people of God, and it is, supposedly, our authority in all matters of faith and practice. And yet.

And yet we don't read our Bibles enough. We neglect them. We are not soaked in them. We don't follow Peterson's (and John's and Ezekiel's) admonition to "eat this book." Instead, we are often culture-soaked, enveloped and engulfed by the messages we receive from the internet and television, music and the movies. Despite the fact that I'm a pastor, this is still something that I continue to learn as well. And so our Bibles sit on mantles, in hotel drawers, on coffee tables, night-stands, etc., conspicuously unread.

But that's not entirely true, nor is it entirely fair. The Bible is not the most friendly, accessible book. It can be intimidating. It can be unwieldy. It can be discouraging to read a verse, a chapter, or even a large chunk of one of its 66 books and realize that you have no idea what it all means. There is narrative. There is poetry. There is apocalyptic literature. There are letters. There are gospels. There are prophets denouncing God's people and announcing imminent doom and destruction. There are odd customs. There is holy war. There is what some might call ethnic cleansing. There are long lists of names (geneaologies). There are lists upon lists of arcane rules that appear to have no relevance for the nineteenth-century, much less the twenty-first! There are culture gaps of thousands of years and miles that separate us from the events and people in the Bible. Is it any wonder that it's hard to get into (and even more difficult to get it into us)?

That's why I'm very excited about the newest addition of the Bible the International Bible Society is releasing this August called The Books of the Bible. What excites me most about this--and if you follow the link, you'll see for yourself--is that they are doing whatever they can to make the Bible more accessible and readable while still maintaining its integrity. All the books are still there, even if re-arranged into their probable historical order and in relation to other books of a similar theme, thrust, or style. Gone is the two-column format which makes our Bibles look more like a phone book than something we may want to read. Gone are the in-text chapter and verse divisions. Gone are the headings. And relegated to the back of each book are the study notes. The effect is that the Bible now looks like a book we might actually read.

Granted, it is still the Bible. All of the books are in tact. Obviously. But this format restores the text. It removes it, hopefully, from our tendency to proof-text and atomize our Scriptures. And while it may prove more difficult to use this edition to memorize specific verses or passages, it hopefully will encourage a fuller reading--one that doesn't stop because of numbers which separate. "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder." I know, that's a poor example of proof-texting my point, but you get the picture. Those chapter and verse divisions are not original to the Bible, and as helpful as they are, they also prevent us sometimes from experiencing the Scriptures as one ongoing narrative, as a collection of whole books that reveal to us God at work in history and the world.

In my opinion, I am very appreciative of whatever will get us into our Bibles more easily. There are enough inherent barriers to good Bible reading that we need to overcome through study and homework, but the very manner of how our Bibles have traditionally been published and printed are themselves barriers to even cracking the spine. Eugene Peterson's The Message already had used a single column format without chapter and verse divisions; and it meant that we could pick up our Bibles like any other book, that is, in a format that was welcoming. I think of kids who inherit King James Bibles from their grandparents and can't understand a word of it. And given the offense and scandal of the biblical message, which makes it both bitter and sweet, whatever we can do to get the Scriptures into us is great news. In fact, it is good news. And isn't that what the Bible is all about in the first place?