{"id":24,"date":"2009-01-09T19:00:21","date_gmt":"2009-01-09T19:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=24"},"modified":"2010-12-22T13:12:14","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T18:12:14","slug":"6793","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2009\/01\/09\/6793\/","title":{"rendered":"McKnight: How Do We Read, Live Out Scripture?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO, IL (January 9, 2009) \u2013 Scot McKnight wants people to give a second thought to how they think about scripture.
\n
\n\u201cI\u2019m concerned that most of us aren\u2019t aware of how we read, apply, and live out the Bible,\u201d says McKnight, the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religion Studies at North Park University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his latest book, The Blue Parakeet<\/em><\/a>, McKnight focuses on how we discern scripture. \u201cIt\u2019s an attempt to lay bare what the average Christian thinks when he or she is applying the Bible to their life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is rooted in McKnight\u2019s own biography. \u201cI was taught, \u201cGod says it, I believe it, that settles it,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

But that isn\u2019t how anyone really behaves, he says. \u201cThe truth is we all sort of pick and choose among the scriptural admonitions, and we would do everyone \u2013 including ourselves – a favor if we just admit it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to take seriously how the authors in the Bible took seriously their predecessors.\u201d<\/h5>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t stone homosexuals, greet each other with a holy kiss, wash each other\u2019s feet, or make women stay silent in the church,\u201d he observes. \u201cMany don\u2019t observe a Sabbath. By using thought processes they most likely are not aware of, Christians explain away these texts for various reasons, including that they are culturally time-bound.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKnight came up with the name of the book after seeing a once tame blue parakeet that had likely escaped its cage and staked a spot in his backyard. The sparrows didn\u2019t know what to make of the strange intruder, but eventually adapted their behavior while allowing the parakeet to be itself. On occasions, however, a move by the bird would frighten the others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe texts that we easily explain away are blue parakeets,\u201d McKnight says. \u201cHow we respond to these passages reveals how we approach scripture.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKnight hopes the book will be a guide to Christians on how they can do what Paul and other writers of scripture did. \u201cWe enter into the world of the Bible, and then we pop into our world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Every author in the Bible went through the same process of discerning what scripture meant for their day. \u201cWe have to take seriously how the authors in the Bible took seriously their predecessors,\u201d McKnight says.<\/p>\n

Each of the writers saw themselves as a story (or wiki-story) within the grand narratives of scripture. They were constrained and freed by those grand themes, he says.<\/p>\n

McKnight says he deliberately stayed away from developing a list of how people should do interpretation, which has frustrated some critics. \u201cThey would have liked for me to write a law book,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

McKnight emphasizes that God has given the Holy Spirit to believers to help them discern how scripture should be applied for their day. \u201cI think people are going to be nervous about discernment,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

It is the same tension that has existed in the church since Paul started emphasizing the Spirit against legalistic interpretations of the law on issues such as circumcision, McKnight says.<\/p>\n

In the final chapters of the book, McKnight takes the reader through the process of discernment by doing a case study on the question of women in ministry. He begins with the text, but not in the familiar passages.<\/p>\n

He begins, not with the texts on women being silent in church, but by asking \u201cWhat did women do?\u201d in the Bible. By looking at the larger context of scripture, the \u201csilencing\u201d passages can be silenced as reasons against women in ministry.<\/p>\n

McKnight says he knows some people will try to use the process he outlines as a way to justify their own favored views, including positions he does not hold. He is adamant, \u201cThat would not be fair to me or what I\u2019m saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

To order The Blue Parakeet<\/em> online, visit Covenant Bookstore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To read the Covenant Resource Paper titled The Covenant Church and the Bible, click here<\/a>. This paper, approved by delegates to the 2008 Annual Meeting, also addresses interpretation of scripture within the context of Covenant history and perspective. Click here<\/a> to access Exploring God’s Word<\/em>, a small group study guide designed to complement the resource paper.<\/p>\n

Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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