We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today: choose one or both.
What are you thankful for?
Do you think that low self-esteem and poor self-identity seem all too prominent in Christians and if so, why?
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In these last pages of The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, Scot re-emphasizes the central importance in Bible reading: to follow and live the story, remembering that it is God who has graciously given it to us. We are to love God and others. So be discerning and be led. The Spirit of God is active in helping us.
It is highly important today that Christians learn how to better read and live the Bible. Scot McKnight's writing is well informed, insightful, articulate, and down to earth, and these are just a few thoughts that come to mind when describing this excellent book. Highly recommended.
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We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What role, if any, does self deception still play in the Christian life?
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Scot, in these chapters of his fine new book The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible works out in practice what he developed in the early part of the book. His focus of discernment is on women in church ministries today. Chapter 11 discusses the Bible and women. Chapter 12 centers on women in the OT and chapter 13 on women in the NT. In the last two chapters, 14 and 15, he deals with some blue parakeets, controversial passages (1 Cor 14 and 1 Tim 2) related to the issue of women leading and teaching. He argues the Pauline emphasis is not on what women cannot do, but on what they must do – learn. “In the Bible, women did learn and did teach” (204). There is no reason, in his opinion, that women should not be teaching in church ministries today.
Scot pleads that his readers not silence blue parakeets. Some say, “We know what women did in the Bible, but that’s not for today!” (204) But is this biblical? Not in Scot’s view. He encourages a post-Pentecost reading of the Bible that allows for an expansion of ministries from Pentecost on. Some will ask, “Why do you think we can expand the ministries of women?” Response. “Very simply: The plot of the Bible, the story of the Bible, and the behavior of women in that Plot and Story reveal to me an increasing expansion of women in church ministries” (204). He points out that many of the cultural restrictions in place during biblical times are no longer the same now. Therefore, we should not limit the ministries of women to the particularity of those cultural contexts, however, he is clear that men and women need to carefully assess the cultural contexts (examples: Asian, Muslim, and Western) and discern what’s appropriate in and for them.
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We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What does it mean to be human?
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The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible is Scot's excellent new book. For anyone who is interested in getting to know God and the Bible better, this book will be very helpful.
“Why do we not follow the Bible sometimes?” Scot continues in chapter 10 with discernment and the question about why we apply some of the Bible and Jesus’ teachings and not the rest. How do we decide? Surely, not all of the Bible or Jesus’ teachings are gray and there is much that is black and white, including Scot’s examples of murder, spousal abuse, or selling one’s children. Scot’s concern is with areas where discernment is at work. Discernment is not neat and tidy and it can be quite messy to attempt to understand the Bible and how it applies in many situations. Scot mentions a few areas, including divorce and remarriage, cosmology, and the death penalty. He draws no conclusions on these issues, but stresses the importance of adopting and adapting, as he claims the Bible itself does. We are called to learn the plot and enter the story in order to listen to God in the best way possible.
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We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do faith and doubt both have a place in Christian spirituality?
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In chapters 6-8 of The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, Scot alerted us to the fact that listening is crucial to good Bible reading. But that’s just the first step. The process of listening must lead to the reality of loving God and doing God’s word. The aim is not just to be informed about the Bible, but to know and love God, practice good works, and love one another. If that’s not happening, our Bible reading has gone astray and needs to change.
These next two chapters (9-10) highlight the need for discernment as to how to apply the Bible to our lives today. How do most of us read Leviticus 19? Scot contends that we probably don’t often keep many of the commands of this chapter. For what reason? You get the picture.
Is it the same for Jesus’ teaching? That was then, this is now? Scot wants to point out that Christians then and now have been pickers and choosers as to which parts of the Bible apply in a particular context – no one takes everything in Jesus’ teaching or the Bible literally. But Scot argues, if that’s the case, and we’re already discerning about application, we need to be more aware of what we’re doing.
Scot then takes three relevant examples (disciple’s prayer, conversion, and ethics) from Jesus’ teaching in order to show that we don’t apply everything he is commanding. If this is true, it should cause us to seriously reflect on and be conscious of how we're reading the Bible.
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