a story to live in

This weekend, I got a chance to speak in church in anticipation of the Love Winnipeg 'caring for the core' initiative coming up. 

As I was preparing, I remembered one of my textbooks referring to how we can approach the Bible as if we are mining for truth... but the truth we mine conforms to our pre-existing ideas/beliefs.  Kind of like we find just what we're looking for, and new insights can be difficult to arrive at because of what we already believe or have been taught.  I underlined that a few times, because it sounded like something I wanted to remember.

This morning, I was reading an essay by Eugene Peterson about the book of Romans.. talking about the apostle Paul, he says:

"All his mental processes are subdued and submissive to what has been handed to him by revelation in Scripture.  The words of scriptural revelation are the means by which he thinks and prays.  Paul's relation to Scripture was not that of a student boning up for an exam, but that of a disciple of Jesus living the text.  He spent the first part of his life as a Pharisee, using the scripture zealously, but wrongly.  He spent the second part of his life as a Christian, living these same Scriptures just as zealously, but in a very different way.  The difference was this: as an activist Pharisee, he used the Scriptures to support an angry crusade; as a believing Christian, he let the Spirit use the Scriptures to form Christ in him.  The Scriptures furnish his vocabulary, shape his imagination, form his life.... it is not only that Paul quotes the Scriptures; he inhabits the story of Scripture... he gives the impression of being totally at ease with this richly expansive narrative of God's Word."

All this reminded me of one my friend Lisa's favorite passage; its in Psalm 119 (I know its one of her favorites because its often quoted on notes/cards I receive from her!) -

" Truly I love your commandments more than gold, more than fine gold.  Truly I direct my steps by all your precepts. I hate every false way.  Your decrees are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them.  The unfolding of your word gives light; and it imparts understanding to the simple." (vs 127-130)