In Search of Kingdom Living

This is not the Bible.

I ended up reading 8 books out of my 10 book challenge. The 2 books that I did not finish were involving leadership, so I figure since I'm in a 'leadership development' class at tyndale, I will supplement those books with the ones from my class.

One of my leadership books (the making of a leader) explores the lives of various leaders, then tries to systematically explain how God develops leaders. From that book, I've been thinking about this one quote a lot: "Watchman Nee's intake of Scripture was not just for knowledge. He learned to recognize God speaking through the Word".

I have to confess that through my readings (biblical and otherwise), it's mainly been about knowledge. It's been mainly about developing my orthodoxy (right belief) and not leading enough to my orthopraxy (right practice). It's such a huge temptation for me just to absorb more and more from my studying (as I think that's how God primarily speaks to me), but then develop a very critical/condemning attitude to my fellow followers of Christ (in actuality, I think I'm critical of them because it's an outlet for my self-criticism). I think I needed to bring light to those dark thoughts so that I can begin to build up my character.

In spite of said confession, I really appreciated the many things that I learned from my readings. One of the books that I read was 'The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel' by Walter Wangerin Jr. Wangerin is popular Christian writer and has recently published 'Paul: the novel'.

Here's an excerpt from a review by Publishers Weekly:
"This is not the Bible," Wangerin (The Book of the Dun Cow; Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace; etc.) says of this newest work. But it is a novel featuring many of the Bible's most dramatic characters. He partitions the whole into eight parts: half focus on personalities (The Ancestors, Kings, Prophets, The Messiah), and half concern themselves with epic themes (The Covenant, The Wars of the Lord, Letters From Exile, The Yearning). Retelling the stories of the Bible in novelized form allows Wangerin to be more selective: no slogging through seemingly endless genealogies or the minutiae of military conflicts for him. Instead, he imagines the finer points of the tension between Sarah and her slave, Hagar; the words Isaac might have used in blessing Jacob; or the drama of Jesus's baptism by his cousin, John. In doing so, he also makes some curious inventions. Does Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, become a justifiably more interesting character, for instance, if he is presented as willingly making nails for the evil ruler Herod to use in crucifixions? For adult readers who are intimidated by the sheer bulk of the Bible, or for those who desire a novelist's different perspective on some very familiar stories, Wangerin is likely to be a welcome voice; for others, however, the novel will feel like an ornate but pale imitation of a great book.

What I loved about Wangerin's approach is that he is trying to reproduce the spirit of (what I think) the bible. The bible is basically God's story as told through the lives of people, their letters, their songs, their rules, their stories.

I found myself asking questions about biblical narratives that I typically don't ask. For instance, why would God bring expand the story of Judah in the middle of the story of Joseph (Exodus 38)?

I started asking questions about minor characters like Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist (Luke 1). Is it possible that he would have a possible working relationship with King Herod?

A more pointed question for me when I started to read the story of Judas (the disciple who betrayed Jesus). What was his motivation to betray Jesus when he was his disciple? What was his perception of Jesus? Are we correct in our typical fashion of condemning him? Do I publically/privately condemn other people the way I would condemn Judas?

Although the book is not perfect, and there are many biblical stories that are missing, I really enjoyed the narrative style that Wangerin demonstrated with this book. If only we can all see how people's stories fit into God's great story, what a dream that would be.

Tune in again for more episodes from the incredible tales of tyndale.