Purely for pleasure, I have been reading through Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache murder mystery series. I just finished The Beautiful Mystery (#8 in the series). I love the way the characters in the books develop over the series. The focus of her books is not so much on the murder as the motivations and emotions of the characters involved.
The Beautiful Mystery is set in an aging monastery hidden deep in the Québec woods, where a group of monks dedicate themselves to their community and singing plainchant. Their prior has been been murdered, and Gamache is called in to find the murderer among them. I’d suggest starting at the beginning of the series! Here is a list of the books in order.
I am hoping to have more time to begin to work on my first Bible study now that the kids are in school. I am feeling deeply inadequate to do such a thing! I know I have a lot to learn and want to be faithful to God’s word. To do that, I am committed to researching and learning better practices for Bible reading and interpretation.
I am reading Amy Peeler’s book, Women and the Gender of God. Peeler is associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, and her book is academic and filled with historical research and interactions with other scholars. She carefully and methodically addresses some questions that I didn’t even know how to articulate, such as, if God is neither male nor female, why do we call him Father? Is God more like human males than human females? Peeler centers her argument around the incarnation of Jesus. Unlike conclusions some other theologians come to (who argue for more gender neutral or maternal language for God), Peeler respectfully disagrees and argues that the incarnation is the central argument FOR using Father language for God.
Here is one quote from the book:
“Christians can and should address God, the first person, as ”Father” not because God is male and not because God is more masculine than feminine but because God the Father as an expression of the triune will sent forth his Son born of a woman. There is no God apart from the one who willed to dwell in the womb of Mary. Jesus of Nazareth, with his form of address for God, born our of his unique experience, reveals who God is. This God is indeed Father.”
God is a father unlike any human father. He partnered with Mary to produce a son like no other in a way no human father ever has.
Lastly, thanks to a recommendation from The Holy Post Pocast, I am reading Old Testament professor John Walton’s new book, Wisdom for Faithful Reading: Principles and Practices for Old Testament Interpretation. Although the book focuses on the Old Testament, the principles for faithful Scripture reading can apply to the whole Bible. This has been a challenging read for me because I am having to rethink much of my Sunday School education and my own instinctive reading of the Scriptures.
One of the biggest themes of the book is that the authors of the Bible need to be respected! I know that sounds simple, but I think we often have no respect for what they intended when they wrote. As they were inspired by God, they wrote within specific genres (law, narrative, prophecy, wisdom literature, poetry) common to their culture and language. They chose specific words that don’t always map easily onto another language. And they were writing with a specific purpose–to tell the story of God in the world! If we don’t consider these things when we read, we can arrive at interpretations that the authors never intended.
Here are the five principles for faithful reading offered by Walton:
- “The author’s message carried the authority of Scripture, and of God.”
- “The author’s message is couched in his language and culture.”
- “Our accountability in interpretation is to track with the author in the text that he produced.”
- “Our interpretation should be supported with evidence that can identify the author’s literary intentions.” This includes “linguistic, literary, cultural, historical, and theological” examination.
- “Our task is to find our place in God’s story, which he has communicated so that we can know him and be in relationship with him, thereby becoming whole-hearted participants in his plans and purposes as he has revealed them in Scripture.”
I hope that you might find something helpful in the things I’m learning!
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