The Bible Jesus Read

Misunderstanding must be nakedly exposed before true understanding can begin to flourish.

God does not seem impressed by size or power or wealth. Faith is what he wants, and the heroes who emerge are heroes of faith, not strength or wealth.

As the books of Job, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk clearly show, God has a high threshold of tolerance for what appropriate to say in a prayer. God can "handle" my unsuppressed rage. I may well find that my vindictive feelings need God's correction - but only by taking those feelings to God will I have the opportunity for correction and healing.

Life with God is an individual matter, and general formulas do not easily apply.

the promise of pleasures so alluring that we may devote our lives to their pursuit, and then the haunting realization that these pleasures ultimately do not satisfy.

Pleasure represents a great good but also a grave danger.

They [Old Testament] taught me about Life with God: not how it is supposed to work, but how it actually does work.

We whine about things we have little control over; we lament what we believe ought to be changed.

we persevere because we believe rewards will come.

La fidelidad implica aprender a confiar que, más allá del perímetro de la oscuridad, Dios aún reina y no nos ha abandonado, no importa lo que parezca.

Growing up in evangelical churches, I got my pictures of the Christian life exclusively from Paul who, I would suggest, is hardly a “typical” Christian. Paul had a miraculous conversion experience, had a history of miracles and supernatural interventions, and—apart from Romans 7, bless that chapter—apparently had an easy time living out the lofty ideals of the Christian life, or at least an easier time than I have. Once Paul understood something intellectually, his emotions tended to line up in good order. Trying to imitate Paul (which he encouraged) is, in my experience, no simpler than trying to imitate Jesus.

In a sense, Job must replay the original test of the garden of Eden, with the bar raised higher. Living in paradise, Adam and Eve faced a best-case scenario for trusting God, who asked so little of them and showered down blessings. In a living hell, Job faces the worst-case scenario: God asks so much, while curses rain down on him.

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind—these are all a drive toward [loving the One] who rings our heart like a bell. —ABRAHAM HESCHEL

I am forced to reexamine. Thomas Merton’s words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular: There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible—until we manage to get so used to it that we make it comfortable for ourselves… Have we ceased to question the book and be questioned by it? Have we ceased to fight it? Then perhaps our reading is no longer serious. For most people, the understanding of the Bible is, and should be, a struggle: not merely to find meanings that can be looked up in books of reference, but to come to terms personally with the stark scandal and contradiction in the Bible itself… Let us not be too sure we know the Bible just because we have learned not to be astonished at it, just because we have learned not to have problems with it.

At times, God's history seems to operate on an entirely different plane than ours...Exodus identifies by name the two Hebrew midwives who helped save Moses' life, but it does not bother to record the name of the Pharaoh ruling Egypt (an omission that has baffled scholars ever since).

G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “All men matter. You matter. I matter. It’s the hardest thing in theology to believe.

Where did our sense of beauty and pleasure come from? That seems to me a huge question—the philosophical equivalent, for atheists, to the problem of pain for Christians. The Teacher’s answer is clear: A good and loving God naturally would want his creatures to experience delight, joy, and personal fulfillment. G. K. Chesterton credits pleasure, or eternity in his heart, as the signpost that eventually directed him to God:

never live as though God does not exist.” Or, stated positively, “Always live in awareness of God’s existence.

In the context of real life, the Bible seems refreshingly whole, an honest reflection on humanity in relation to the sacred and the profane.