Eat This Book

Every afternoon I take my one-year-old into my home office and shut the door. He has pretty much baby-proofed the space. The guitars are all in their cases. The instrument cables and phone chargers are wrapped up and are out of reach from his clammy little fingers. Don’t forget about the electrical sockets. Those suckers are plugged up for life.

There are some things I have left out for him to get into. Piles of books. I have filled up all my bookshelves, so I have started stacking little piles around the room. Let me tell you… Soren loves books. I can set him down and get a solid hour of work done while he rolls around on the floor and plays with them. Every few minutes I look away from my computer to see him lying on his back gnawing on the corner of my Small Catechism or ripping out the pages of some parenting book I bought with the intentions of reading but have failed to open over the past year because I have been too busy actually raising my boy. 

I love watching him play with my books, albeit most of my books look like I live with a teething puppy. Every time I see him literally eating one of my books, I can’t help but say, “Eat that book!” which then makes me think of a book by Eugene Peterson called Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading.

This is a book I “read” in seminary. And by “read”, I mean I scanned it to find the answers I needed for a quiz or a paper I was writing. Peterson is one of my favorite authors, but I must be honest, I have not read most of this title. But, I do remember liking what I did read.

The first line of the book’s Amazon description is, “Eat This Book challenges us to read the Scriptures on their own terms…”

Let’s stop there.

I am not sure if you are the Bible reading type. I don’t know what your relationship with the Bible is like. You may love it. You may hate it. You may love the idea of reading it, but like many people, you may struggle reading it with any sort of intentionality and regularity.

I think a big reason a lot of us struggle with reading the Bible is that we try to read it on our own terms.

Let me explain.

Many people come to the Bible with a question to answer, an agenda to support, or an assumption to protect. Then when our question isn’t answered, our agenda isn’t supported, or our assumptions are challenged we set it down and let it collect dust.

So, is this the best way to approach the Bible? Peterson would argue no. Well, I can’t really make that claim since I haven’t actually read his book, but whoever wrote the Amazon description seems to argue that Peterson wouldn’t think so.

Apparently, Peterson challenges us to read the Scriptures on their own terms.

Maybe the Bible isn’t meant to answer your questions.

Maybe the Bible wasn’t meant to support your agenda.

Maybe the Bible wasn’t meant to protect your assumptions.

Maybe the Bible has its own set of questions for you. Maybe the Bible has its own agenda to support. Maybe the Bible has its own set of assumptions about you that it wants you to wrestle with.

What if we went to the Scriptures with a sense of humility and wonder? What if we let the Bible read us?

Maybe we wouldn’t get so bored with reading seemingly bizarre and outdated stories If we approached the Bible this way.

This is easier said than done.

I am reading through the Bible in a year, and I have been in Ezekiel and Isaiah for weeks. If you aren’t the Bible reading type all you need to know is that I feel like I am stuck in a dry and barren desert. This morning I read 4 chapters of God bringing judgment on people because of their rebellion against his commands. Let me tell you, it is some uplifting stuff. Nothing makes me want to go conquer the day like,

Ezekiel 25:1–5

The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, set your face toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them. Say to the Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord GOD: Thus says the Lord GOD, Because you said, ‘Aha!’ over my sanctuary when it was profaned, and over the land of Israel when it was made desolate, and over the house of Judah when they went into exile, therefore behold, I am handing you over to the people of the East for a possession, and they shall set their encampments among you and make their dwellings in your midst. They shall eat your fruit, and they shall drink your milk. I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels and Ammon a fold for flocks. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

Did you just scan that paragraph of Scripture? Yeah, I bet you did! Just like I did this morning! My first response is to quickly scan over passages like this one so I can check the day off my reading list. I can do that. It is fine. God isn’t going to smite me because I am lazy. God isn’t going to withhold his love because I get easily distracted. God even may use this passage in my life despite my indifference.

But what if God is inviting me into something deeper?

What if I sat with these verses for a few minutes instead of quickly glossing over them? What if I asked the Spirit to reveal something to me about my own humanity in relation to the Divine? What if I just sat and listened with an expecting imagination?

Who knows what I may get out of it?

Maybe nothing. Or maybe something.

Maybe I’ll try to read the Bible on its own terms this week.

What about you?

What would it look like to let the Bible come to you on its own terms?

Grace and peace ‘til we rise in glory.