• SOULPRINTS: How the Bible Actually Works

• PSYCHO-PATHS: “Who Am I?” Podcast

• FYI: Coming September 1!

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Are you using the Bible the way it was intended? Most would answer, “Of course! I find truth about God, salvation, ethics, and the future on every page!” Dr. Peter Enns is not so sure our answer will stand deeper scrutiny. Enns is professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University in Pennsylvania and a world-renowned Old Testament scholar. He asserts that we are expecting something of the Bible that is out-of-line with how the central figures of the Bible used their sacred Scriptures. The majority of believers hold the “mistaken belief that the Bible is something like a divine instruction manual, a rulebook, so to speak…. When we come to the Bible expecting it to be an instruction manual intended by God to give us unwavering, cement-hard certainty about our faith… the Bible wasn’t designed to meet that expectation” (p. 4).

Enns seeks to prove his point by showing the divergence and ambiguity in Scripture. He also details how the great leaders like Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul brought out startling new insights that were very much different than earlier teachings. For example, Paul reinterprets the promised Kingdom to include all people, no matter what their ethnic heritage might be. His world and God’s work demanded a reimagining for a new era.

This process is the way of Wisdom in which we join in the work of exploring and applying the God-encounters of the past to the world of today. Enns writes, “the Bible holds out for us an invitation to join an ancient, well-traveled, and sacred quest to know God, the world we live in, and our place in it…. Wisdom is about the lifelong process of being formed into mature disciples, who wander well along the unscripted pilgrimage of faith, in tune to the all-surrounding thick presence of the Spirit of God in us and in the creation around us” (p 12).

I was trained in the traditional manner of interpreting Scripture: to uncover the completely true, congruent, culturally universal, and unchanging teaching of all verses. Very little in the 66 books (or is it 73?) of the Bible would fit these criteria. Enns’ work led me to a better insight of how these sacred Scriptures remain alive today. I’ve found great power in seeking this Wisdom approach in a post-modern culture. I think Enns has answered the title of his book, How the Bible Actually Works.

How the Bible Actually Works, Peter Enns. (New York: HarperOne, 2019).

In the podcast I published, “Finding Me: The Path to Identity,” I explore the challenges all of us face in defining who we are as unique individuals. It is a journey all of us walk; the discovery of our identity seems a universal quest. No matter what our age, the growing person is trying to sort out the whirling thoughts of social connection, achievement, sex, or family to answer the question, ‘Who am I?” The discovery of a true identity can come when we reject the lies formed from wounds in the past and accept new truths about our Self from a positive spirituality. You have a choice in answering the question, “What will I believe about myself?”

This 20 minute podcast is worth your time to reflect and move forward! Click the link to enjoy it from my podcast host, Buzzsprout.

“Finding Me: The Path to Identity