I love this full-story way of teaching that is coming back to the church. Taking the long view of biblical history rather than cherry picking verses or sections as self-improvement advice.
Maybe this is why proof-texting gets so ugly. Once the Bible becomes a jar of disconnected verses, you can shake out whichever one justifies what you already wanted to believe. A story is harder to control. It keeps asking where the whole thing is going, who God is becoming clearer as, and whether your favorite verse still looks holy when you put it back into the larger arc.
It's perhaps worth noting that much of Torah, what we often call the Law, is actually narrative - the whole of Genesis, much of Exodus and Numbers, and even Deuteronomy - and that narrative is as much Torah as the commandments.
My husband and I spent the weekend with my mother-in-law. My father-in-law passed a couple years ago and it would have been their 67th wedding anniversary.
I love this full-story way of teaching that is coming back to the church. Taking the long view of biblical history rather than cherry picking verses or sections as self-improvement advice.
Maybe this is why proof-texting gets so ugly. Once the Bible becomes a jar of disconnected verses, you can shake out whichever one justifies what you already wanted to believe. A story is harder to control. It keeps asking where the whole thing is going, who God is becoming clearer as, and whether your favorite verse still looks holy when you put it back into the larger arc.
Borg helped me quite a bit. Thanks for sharing!
It's perhaps worth noting that much of Torah, what we often call the Law, is actually narrative - the whole of Genesis, much of Exodus and Numbers, and even Deuteronomy - and that narrative is as much Torah as the commandments.
Amen! It’s all story, and like any good story the truth is in the arc of the story, not the details.
My husband and I spent the weekend with my mother-in-law. My father-in-law passed a couple years ago and it would have been their 67th wedding anniversary.