On February 2, 2009 by

Reading The Bible Right

Reading The Bible Right
by Brian Zahnd

It’s a STORY
We’re telling news here
Keeping alive an ancient epic
The grand narrative of paradise lost and paradise regained
The greatest “Once upon a time” tale every told
The beautiful story which moves relentlessly toward—
“They lived happily ever after”
Never, never, NEVER forget that before its anything else it’s a story
So let the Story live and breathe, enthrall and enchant
Don’t rip out its guts and leave it lifeless on the dissecting table
Don’t make it something it’s really not—
A catalog of wished-for promises
An encyclopedia of God-facts
A law journal of divine edicts
A how-to manual for do-it-yourselfers
Find the promises, learn the facts, heed the laws, live the lessons
But don’t forget the Story
Learn to read the Book for what it is—
God’s great big wild and wonderful surprise ending love story
Let there be wonder
Let there be mystery
Let there be tragedy
Let there be heartbreak
Let there be suspense
Let there be surprise
Let it be earthy and human
Let it be celestial and divine
Let it be what it is and don’t try to make it perfect where it’s not
This fantastic story of—
Creation
Alienation
Devastation
Incarnation
Salvation
Restoration
With its cast of thousands, more Tolstoy novel than thousand page sermon
It’s a Story because we are not saved by ideas but by events!
Here’s a plotline for you: Death, Burial, and Resurrection
Yes, it’s a story—not a plan, not ology or ism, but a story
And it’s an amalgamated patchwork story told in mixed medium
Narration, history, genealogy
Prophecy, poetry, parable
Psalm, song, sermon
Dream and vision
Memoir and letter
So understand the medium and don’t try so hard to miss the point
Try to learn what matters and what doesn’t
It’s not where and when Job lived
But what Job learned
In his painful odyssey and poetic theodicy
It’s not how many cubits of water you need to put Everest under a flood
But why the world was so dirty that it needed such a big bath
Trying to find Noah’s ark
Instead of trying to rid the world of lust and violence
Really is an exercise in missing the point
Speaking of missing the point—
It’s not did a snake talk?
But what the freakin’ thing said!
Because even though I’ve never met a talking snake
I’ve sure had serpentine thoughts crawl through my head
Literalism is a kind of escapism
By which you move out of the crosshairs of the probing question
But parable and metaphor have a way of knocking us to the floor
Prose flattened literalism makes the story small, time confined and irrelevant
But poetry and allegory travel through time and space to get in our face
Inert facts are easy enough to set on the shelf
But the Story well told will haunt you
Ah, the Story well told
That’s what is needed
It’s time for the Story to bust out of the cage and take the stage
And demand a hearing once again
It’s a STORY, I tell you!
And If you allow the Story to seep into your life
So that THE STORY begins to weave into your story
That’s when, at last, you’re reading the Bible right

  • http://www.kurtjohnson.info Kurt Johnson

    The Bible doesn’t line up with many of the systematic grids that we try to lay on it. Keep the epic alive.

  • http://www.kurtjohnson.info Kurt Johnson

    The Bible doesn’t line up with many of the systematic grids that we try to lay on it. Keep the epic alive.

  • Victoria

    Awesome! Really something to meditate on…the Story, that is.

    -From a teenager who subscribes to your blog.

  • Peri

    I just heard a “story” of a poor Chinese woman who heard the “story” for the first time, and wept with joy, hoping it could be true.

    What’s wrong with us?

    I’ll remember Creation, Alienation, Devastation, Incarnation, Salvation, Restoration. It’s the STORY!!!

  • Linda Carter

    The word “story” bothers me. To me its MORE than a “story”. Definitely needs to be told and kept alive by us the church, passed on to future generations, along with our own experiences of HIS WORD working and living in our daily lives. It is indeed life..inspired Word of God. Its happening…so be it according to Thy Word.

  • joe mercy

    Once again, BZ, you hit a home run into the upper deck. Don’t let the word “story” bother you, Linda… As we say about worship leading: “it’s more than performance, but not less than performance;” or what we say about preaching, “it’s more than drama, but not less than drama” so too, God’s Word is more than story, but it’s not less than story.” God chose for his WORD to come to us in the form of a grand, epic narrative (a story). It’s a big story, a true story, a story too good not to be true…, but it’s still a story. And when we read it as such, it keeps us from a multitude of sins (sins of interpretation, sins of cramming things into a system, etc).

  • Peri

    I love stories….hearing them, reading them. I have a story, and so does every human God ever created. I’m sometimes sad about all the stories that have disappeared from the earth, died with the ones who lived them. I think it’s important to remember the stories, to get them written down, so they can be remembered and cherished. Of course, the most important story of all is God’s story, and the cool thing is that OUR stories all fit into his BIG GRAND INCREDIBLE EPIC STORY!

  • barry

    Keep in mind while it is very important to understand what the story says, it is equally important to uderstand that there are some things it does not say.

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  • Chris Campbell

    I had always felt life first as a story- and if there is a story there is a story teller. G.K. Chesterton “Don’t rip out its guts and leave it lifeless on the dissecting table” BZ. Really enjoyed how this blog was done. Thanks for taking the time. I was just reading Epic(the story God is telling) By John Eldredge. Life doesn’t come to us like a math problem. It comes to us the way that a story does,scene by scene. By the way thanks for sharing about the Desert Storm attitude thing. I was guilty also. Gonna change my way of thinkin, get myself a different set of rules… stop bein influenced by fools.

  • Rod Wood

    Amen brother! I have never heard it put any better, it’s a little like the Catholic Bishops have tried to explain it, but they did not hit the Grand Salami like you have done here! For the rest of my life, I will remember, “And If you allow the Story to seep into your life So that THE STORY begins to weave into your story That’s when, at last, you’re reading the Bible right” Brian, I am a living testimony that if you can allow that to happen, it will change you in such a manner, that you’ll never ever be the same! God Bless…

  • Gavin Brawley

    It’s not did a snake talk?
    But what the freakin’ thing said!

    Great word. I have just subscribed to your blog and I am so encouraged by these posts. So many times people get caught up in ‘splitting hairs’ that they can’t see the ultimate picture. A love STORY that tells of a love that we can’t begin to fathom. Thanks for putting this into perspective.

  • Heather Yates

    I have a beloved Marc Chagall illustrated Bible- well actually, just the books of Genesis, Exodus & Song of Solomon. His is a visual poetry as stunning in pose(s) as are your prose(s). :-)

  • http://facebook.com/brianzahnd Brian Zahnd

    I have the Marc Chagall bible too. Peri and I are big Chagall fans.