The uncomfortable Blue Parakeet can make you think

Recently, a good friend complained to me that a particular Bible discussion didn't help to clarify the particular issue in his mind. He said, "I walked a way less sure and more confused." My response was "good."

Over the recent years I have become more comfortable with the idea that God is too big for us to know with clarity. Without a doubt, we are to strive each day to know him better than the last day. We are to study his word (the Bible), listen to expert comentaries, and discuss it in faithful groups of Christians. These are important steps for the follower of Christ and will facilitate spiritual growth.

We cannot expect that Christian growth means that we are less confused, that we know God more perfectly, or that our study will raise much of anything but more questions. Karl Barth (pronounced bart), a Swiss, Neo-orthodox theologian who valiantly battle liberal theology in the early to mid-1900s, called this dialectical theology because he believed that too much of God was paradoxical and unknowable to the human. Barth's point was that the best answer to a theological question was the next best question.

This brings me to my book review on Scot McKnight's The Blue Parakeet (Zondervan, 2008, 240 pages). (I provided this link for your convenience should you like to read the book. I read the Kindle version.) McKnight is a thoughtful, seasoned Bible scholar who teaches at North Park University in Chicago. In The Blue Parakeet, McKight examines how we should read the Bible, particularly the difficult passages. I'll let you read the book to discover why it is named so.

McKnight, by his own reasoning, is an evangelical scholar. There are many with a more narrow interpretation of evangelical who wouldn't agree, because many evangelicals will only identify with others who subscribe to specific set of doctrine. This doctrine is often narrow in interpretation and broad in scope.

One point that many evangelicals will struggle with the Blue Parakeet and McKnight, is that he is in many way post-modern. He makes a strong argument that the Bible must be read as a story (not a fiction story) and applied according to the context of the reader. He argues that too many want to read the Bible as a list of laws, morsels of blessings, an psychological inkblot, a puzzle, or examples of Maestros. I will let McKnight explain those.

McKnight, on the other hand, believe the Bible is God's story from begining to end, with each book being the author's telling of the story at a particular time to a particular people. The challenge then is to read the Bible with an understanding of that time and people, and learn what that means to today and to the people you live among. This is not easy. It is more work than the other ways we can read the Bible. It also means that two people in two different places may draw different interpretations, particularly with respect to a passage's application.


At this point, I'm sure that many of my Christian friends are getting uncomfortable. That is alright. I was too, and I think that it is that discomfort that drove me to read the rest of the Blue Parakeet with an open, but discerning mind. In the end, discernment is the crux of McKnight's book. Everything in the Bible must be discerned with the Holy Spirit and nothing is settled.

This post is already too long, but there is more I would like to say about these matter. I hope to do so in other posts. Let me just conclude by saying that as I read the Blue Parakeet, I felt uncomfortable. I still do not agree with every point he makes, but I can tell you that I also began asking a lot more questions about my God, myself and my understanding of what it means to know God. I was driven deeper into my Bible, and, while I developed more questions, I believe that the depth of my questions is growing. I believe this book has helped me to grow as a believer, too.

Can I pray without words?

I've been working on Eccliesiaties the last couple weeks.  This is the first time I've gone through it in a while and, again, I want to thank the people of the Bible Postcast for bringing me back to this book of great wisdom.  Today I'm awed by the wisdom of the first few verses of Chapter 5.  We forget about being silent before the Lord and I'm not sure we know how to do it well, neither in prayer or in worship.  Too often it becomes a way of seperating us from the rest of the community of God.  You know those times that a worship leader will say, "Close your eyes and imagine that it is just you and God here in this room."  I despise that.  I don't come to worship with a community in order to pretend that the community is not there.

No matter how we are to worship and pray in silence, Solomon reminds us that we are better to approach the throne silently.

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

 Clearly my dear brothers and sisters of evangelical practices don't come to listen but to speak.  Neither in worship or in prayer.  How many times have I been in a prayer group that spent 30 minutes talking about all the hopes, fears and wishes of the people and friends of people in the room, then after talking about those things everyone closes their eyes and in a "prayerful attitude" talk about those things again?  The intention is good, a desire to see God's hand moving among themselves and those that they mention.  Unfortunately, the desires of fools is also pure.  It is the fool's knowledge of reality that is lacking.

I don't know what are corporate prayer times and worship would look like if we come together to listen, but I know that I am going to make an attempt to do so.  For the next 4 weeks, in prayer times and in worship, I'm going to put my energy, my mind to listening.  Not to others, but to God.  Not to the god in my own head, but to God as he works among the people of my church.

I wonder if you will join me?  Does this make you uncomfortable?  Does it seem too mystical? It does to me in a way, but I'm not sure what else to do with this passage.

Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.